


Wolves

by Saucery



Series: Spideypool Stories [6]
Category: Deadpool (2016), Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Accidental Plot, Adorable, Aggressive Attack Hugs, Alliances, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Prison, And Gets One, Antisemitism, Arousal, Awkward Boners, BAMF Gwen, BAMF Ned, BAMF Peter, Banter, Begging, Bisexual Character, Bisexuality, Biting, Body Worship, Brutality, Canon-Typical Violence, Card Games, Clever Peter, Cock Tease, Coitus Interruptus, Coming In Pants, Communication, Companionable Snark, Cuddling & Snuggling, Daddy Kink, Desire, Dirty Thoughts, Dom/sub Undertones, Drama, Dry Humping, Even After They Have Sex, Eventual Sex, Everybody Thinks They're Fucking Before They Actually Are, Exhibitionism, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Falling In Love, False Accusations, Feels, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Followed By Deadpool Gutting Anybody Who Threatens Peter, Friendship, Frottage, Gentleness, Hacking, Happy Ending, Healthy Relationships, Heavy Petting, Holding Hands, Hugs, Human Experimentation, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, I MEAN REALLY THIS IS JUST RIDICULOUS, Inaccuracies, Inappropriate Erections, Innocence, Institutionalized Racism, Intimacy, It Never Lets Up, Kissing, LIKE CONSTANT SEXUAL TENSION, Living Together, Loss of Control, Loss of Virginity, Love Bites, Lust, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Moral Ambiguity, Muscles, Negotiations, Opposites Attract, PETER SERIOUSLY YOU NEED TO STOP, PETER WHAT ARE YOU GETTING YOURSELF INTO, Pansexual Character, Possessive Behavior, Power Bottom, Power Imbalance, Prison, Prison Sex, Prison-Based Race Politics, Project Rebirth, Protectiveness, Public Claiming, Public Display of Affection, Public Nudity, Rewritten To Suit This AU, Ride Or Die To The MAX, Romance, Romantic Comedy, Roommates, Sassy Peter, Seduction, Self-Esteem Issues, Sensuality, Sexual Tension, Shower Sex, Showers, Size Difference, Size Kink, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Social Commentary, Strategy & Tactics, Strength Kink, Sweet/Hot, THE FLUFF WILL FUCKING KILL YOU, THE SILLIEST PRISON FIC YOU WILL EVER READ, Talking, Teasing, Tenderness, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Topping from the Bottom, Touch-Starved, Touching, Triggers, True Love, Trust Kink, Until It Becomes Oh So Real, Vanessa Is A Badass Lawyer Who Don’t Need No Man, Voyeurism, Wade Is A Gentleman, Wade Wilson Needs A Hug, Wet Dream
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-06
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2018-08-13 08:37:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 44,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7969831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter is falsely accused and sent to jail, where he meets the violent ex-mercenary, Wade.</p><p>Or: Prison daddy Deadpool looks after his boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I promise I’m still continuing [Kiss](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6390289)! I just, er, I kind of had to write this.

* * *

 

Peter was clad in the garish orange of a traffic cone, but somehow, he got the feeling that wasn’t why he was being gawked at. He had the horrid suspicion that it was because he was young, and because he had all his teeth. Or whatever passed for “pretty” around here.

His suspicion was confirmed when a whistle from the upper balcony made him jump.

“Hey, chicken! Wanna lay my eggs?”

Peter ignored the ensuing hoots and hollers, his ears burning. Ignoring them wouldn’t suffice once he was in the communal showers, or in the mess hall, or in the exercise yard, or in any public place that wasn’t his cell. Even his cell mightn’t be safe, if his cellmate turned out to be bigger and meaner than he was.

Almost anyone would be bigger and meaner than Peter was, given that Peter was only here for the crime of intellectual property theft, and even that was a frame-up by Norman Osborn. The heaviest object Peter had ever hefted in his skinny arms was a CPU, and his smarts wouldn’t get him far in a world where brute strength reigned supreme.

Unless Peter quickly deciphered the complex power structures that existed within the prison system, and managed to ingratiate himself with a faction that would shelter him, or with a boss high enough in the hierarchy to offer him the same degree of protection.

He tried not to imagine what ingratiating himself would involve. Maybe he could offer his more cerebral skills as a bargaining point. Not that he wanted to commit any crimes—he wasn’t a criminal—but surely hacking the computer network for simple and relatively harmless reasons, such as downloading pornography for sexually frustrated prisoners or sourcing contraband such as cigarettes and alcohol from outside the prison, wouldn’t trouble his conscience overmuch. Or make him feel like he belonged here. Which he didn’t. All he had to do now was to ensure that he never would.

The guard leading him to his cell stopped in front of a massive steel door with no window hatch whatsoever. The other doors had hatches. Peter had the creeping sense that this was not a good sign.

“Oh, my,” said the guy from the opposite cell, in a twangy Texan drawl. “A little lamb for the wolf, huh? Do they think that’s gonna calm him down?” He winked at Peter and said, “You better pray you’re his type, boy.”

“Shut the hell up,” barked the guard, as Peter’s heart sank.

The guard—whose badge bore the name George Yaxley—gripped the baton strapped to his waist, white-knuckled, clearly bracing himself before opening the cell. That couldn’t be a good sign, either.

Yaxley pressed a series of buttons on the keypad on the outside wall, a series Peter promptly memorized, on autopilot. Yaxley caught Peter looking.

“Don’t bother,” he said. “The computer changes the password every six hours. You won’t have the opportunity to use this again.”

 _But it’s a computer_ , Peter thought to himself. _If it’s a computer, I can hack into it. And reprogram it_. Wait, why was he even considering that? Breaking out would be a real crime, and he wouldn’t have a future if he did it. If he hung in there for the eight years he was sentenced, he’d still have more of a life left than if he—

Spent those eight years getting fucked?

Shit.

The metal door swung inwards with a creak, and Peter didn’t even have the chance to freak out about stepping into his very own personal torture chamber, because Yaxley just shoved him in and slammed the door shut before Peter could make any independent movement of his own.

“New roommate, Deadpool,” the guard announced through the door, and fled in an audible hurry.

Coward.

Peter took a deep breath and focused.

There… was a man in the cell.

Well, of course there was a man in the cell. Not like there’d be a leprechaun. Although at least a leprechaun would be too small to overpower him, and maybe Peter’s rambling subconscious was just trying to dream up a situation in which he _wouldn’t_ get brutally sodomized on the regular, but—

He had to stop panicking.

He took another deep breath.

The man lounging on the only chair in the room had a bunch of playing cards in one hand, with his other arm slung casually across the back of the chair. The sole table in the room also had playing cards on it, despite there being no opponent, and Peter felt a frisson of disbelief at the surreal revelation that his potential rapist was playing solitaire.

“Why, hello,” said the prisoner—Deadpool? What an alarming nickname—and studied his cards, not even bothering to glance up at his new cellmate. He was covered in hideous scars. Rather, the scars covered him, because there wasn’t a single visible patch of unscarred skin on a body that was otherwise heavily muscled and intimidatingly tall. It was like he’d been burned, shot and stabbed in every conceivable way, and yet he was, unbelievably, alive. Peter didn’t dare to dwell on how strong that must make him. “Are you supposed to be my bribe for behaving myself? An actual roommate after an eon of solitude?”

Peter realized that he had plastered himself to the door like a pancake. A very frightened pancake. He slowly unplastered himself, because heck if he was going to act the coward like that guard just did.

Deadpool looked up at him at last.

Peter stood there, petrified, a deer in the proverbial headlights. Deadpool’s eyes were _intense_ , chillingly manic and feral, but at the same time, oddly playful. It was a jarring combination. An unnerving combination. Like the guy would laugh while pulling a knife on someone.

“Goddamn,” Deadpool said, surveying Peter from head to foot. “They must really want me to behave. Did they buy you off some Russian bride website? With words like ‘delicate’ and ‘waif’ in the description?” He got up, putting aside his cards, and Peter flinched.

Deadpool… paused. And sat back down.

“Relax, kid. I’m not into folks that aren’t into me. Which is most folks, let’s be honest. You any good at playing cards?”

Peter stared.

“Eh, don’t worry. You’ll be outta here when they find out I didn’t bang you. I wonder how many adorable twinks they’re gonna throw at me before they figure out I’m not into assault.” Deadpool grinned. “Violent assault, sure. Sexual assault? Not so much.”

“Some kinds of assault are both,” Peter blurted, and then winced at his own words.

Deadpool raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you’re in for? Don’t reckon you could hurt a fly, though.”

“I’m—I’m not a rapist!”

“Lucky for you. ’Cause if you were, I’d have to kill ya.”

And Peter was back to staring.

Deadpool shrugged. “’S what I do.”

“Kill rapists?”

“And child molesters. And drug dealers that peddle to minors. And domestic abusers.”

“Is that what _you’re_ in for?”

“Yep,” Deadpool said cheerfully. “If they deserve to die, I kill ’em. I’ve helped lower the criminal population of the city by at least a fifth. The government oughta thank me for all the money I’ve saved them.”

“You’re a vigilante serial killer.” Peter made himself say it, as if saying it would make it plausible, but it sounded like the plot of a comic book. A very badly-written comic book.

“Used to be a professional serial killer with vigilante ambitions. Became a bonafide vigilante just before getting arrested. Totally worth it.”

“By your logic, don’t you deserve to die, as well?”

“Not for those reasons. And they’re the worst ones.”

“You’re a hypocrite.”

It was Deadpool’s turn to stare. “That took guts to say,” he marveled. “You ain’t scared of me?”

“I’m shaking in my boots.” Peter blinked down at his feet, which were, in fact, quaking. “Shoes. Shaking in my ugly prison shoes.”

“But you still said what you were thinking.”

“I’m not a coward.”

“Not fond of cowards, I take it?”

“I got framed by one.”

“Claiming innocence? Haven’t heard that excuse in a while. You don’t look it, kid, but you wouldn’t be in a maximum security prison for just any crime.”

“You would be if the bastard framing you owned every judge in every county in every state in this country.”

Deadpool hummed. “There’s a tragic backstory there, but I only have you for, like, eleven hours, or however many hours there are until tomorrow. So, you wanna play cards, or what?”

Peter wasn’t up to whatever “or what” was, so he inched closer to Deadpool and said: “Fair warning, I’m a genius. And I won’t throw a game.”

Deadpool squinted up at him, a weird smile pulling at his mouth. “You ever actually played poker, kid?”

“Peter. The name’s Peter.”

“You ever played poker, Petey?”

“No.”

“Then you’ll learn intelligence is only half of the game. Being able to bluff is the other half. And I’m willing to bet you can’t bluff your way out of a paper bag.”

That stung, because it was that very personality trait—gullibility—that had made Peter such easy prey for Osborn. Peter huffed, and to his surprise, Deadpool abandoned his chair, sitting cross-legged on the floor so that Peter could sit, too.

A _courteous_ vigilante serial killer. What the hell?

Deadpool began shuffling the cards, all efficient and businesslike. “Now, the first rule of poker is…”

Peter settled down, his legs also crossed, the adrenaline that had ratcheted up his heartbeat beginning to die down. He couldn’t trust that this whackjob wouldn’t kill him, or attack him when convenient. But there was a strange quality to Deadpool, something electric and viciously _free_ , like he thrived on defying people’s expectations.

Peter hoped Deadpool would defy his.

 

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

By the next morning, Peter knew the following things about Deadpool: that his name was Wade, that he hadn’t gotten laid in seven years, that he still got sad about his ex-girlfriend dumping him while he was in the clink, that he had a kill-count of one-hundred-and-twenty-eight, five of which were added to his tally after he was incarcerated, and that he’d been in solitary for six continuous years because of a loophole in prison law that had only recently been reformed.

The lawyer responsible for said reform was Wade’s aforementioned ex-girlfriend, Vanessa, who was a hotshot defense attorney and a member of [Solitary Watch](http://solitarywatch.com/), an activist organization advocating for the rights of prisoners in solitary confinement. She’d presented Wade’s case to the Supreme Court in a landmark ruling that had forced the Grantham Correctional Facility to release Wade into the general prison population precisely three days ago, with a stern reprimand forbidding them from putting Wade—or anyone else—in solitary for more than a month at a stretch.

Unfortunately, Wade’s release left them with the problem of how to prevent Wade from killing or maiming his fellow inmates like he’d done _before_ his six-year stint in solitary, which was why they’d concluded that giving Wade a cute pet would… distract him? Burn off some of that feral, deadly energy with good old-fashioned non-consensual sex? Argh. Just attempting to understand their motivations gave Peter a headache.

In addition to the above details, Peter now knew things about Wade that only playing card games with somebody could reveal: that Wade was canny, that he didn’t have enough of an ego to get upset when he lost, and that he cheated whenever possible, not to win but to amuse himself by tripping up his opponent. Also, Wade flirted at the frequency of 1.39 indecent proposals per 2 sentences, but he’d stopped doing it when Peter said the flirting was making him uncomfortable.

He’d _stopped_.

He hadn’t stopped when his numerous victims screamed and pleaded for their lives, but he’d stopped when “a sweet, doe-eyed boy” (Wade’s description, not Peter’s) asked Wade to maybe please not refer to genitalia in his presence? Please?

Wade was the biggest walking contradiction Peter had ever seen. Wade would probably be tempted to make a dick joke about the term “biggest,” though, so Peter didn’t share his opinion.

“You can just ask,” Wade said, cracking a yawn as the guards on the early shift went around doing the pre-breakfast head-count, their yelling muffled through the steel door. “Y’know, whether I was as unhinged before solitary as I am after solitary.”

Peter rubbed his eyes. “Were you?” he asked sleepily. They’d fallen asleep partway between the thirty-fifth game and the thirty-sixth, the cards of the latter in an un-dealt pile beside Wade’s elbow.

“Nah. I mean, solitary didn’t make me better, but it didn’t make me worse, either. I was always used to talking to myself. So!” Wade clapped his hands. “Breakfast! Your freedom awaits! If we eat at different tables, the guards will assume we didn’t do the nasty, and you’ll be reassigned by lunch.”

Peter felt a bizarre surge of nervousness. Somehow, he doubted the rest of the inmates shared Wade’s peculiar brand of chivalry. What if Peter _did_ get assigned to a cellmate hellbent on deflowering him? He couldn’t be lucky twice in a row, could he?

When they were let out for breakfast, Peter shadowed Wade to the mess hall, which resembled a pool of piranhas. Orange, jeering piranhas. Intent on devouring Peter.

“Well!” Wade waved merrily at Peter. “Bye-bye, Pe—”

Peter hung onto the back of Wade’s shirt. Tightly.

“Er. Guess I should. Show you how to line up for breakfast? It’s an advanced skill. Totally requires a demonstration. And as a reward for learning this important survival skill, you get food! Not that it’s food. It’s piles of indistinguishable mulch. The vaguely grey-green mulch is the peas. The vaguely grey-brown mulch is... I try not to think about what it is. Eventually, you’ll learn how to tell ’em apart. Hell, you might even write a taxonomy book about ’em.”

Peter stuck close to Wade as they joined the rather depressed line of convicts leading to vats of equally depressed-looking food. “You’re familiar with taxonomy?”

“I may act like a dumbass, but… No, wait, I _am_ a dumbass. You’re genius enough for the both of us, Petey.”

The lady ladling out servings from the kitchen alcove was the most horrifyingly troll-like being Peter had seen outside of a Harry Potter movie, who smiled—horrifyingly—when Peter stuttered a high-pitched “thank you.”

“Don’t judge a book by its cover,” Wade said. “She’s even scarier than she looks.”

Wade clomped happily to a table—which promptly emptied—and began eating after plonking himself down on the bench. Peter copied him, trailing Wade like a miniature pilot fish swimming alongside a shark.

Wade looked askance when Peter joined him, waggling his eyebrows as if to say, _Weren’t you supposed to be eating somewhere else?_

Peter wasn’t sure he should be eating somewhere else. Wade hadn’t touched him since they’d entered the hall, and given the unholy sparks of hope beginning to light up in the other prisoners’ eyes, Peter was starting to get that this was A Big Deal. With capitals, and everything.

The gazes of the prisoners lingered on Peter with increasing boldness, and some of the men—particularly those behind Wade and thus out of his sight—were even emboldened enough to do more than look. A middle-aged, balding man smirked at Peter while making a complicated gesture that was likely a suggestion that he and Peter become intimate in ways involving multiple orifices.

Oh, no.

Peter recalled what Wade had said about bluffing. About how you couldn’t win without bluffing.

Which was why, when Peter asked Wade to pass the pepper and Wade absent-mindedly complied, Peter said softly: “Thanks, Daddy.”

Wade froze. His fork screeched to a halt on his plastic plate.

Everybody else froze, too. Only to relax, all at once, as if a potential civil war had been averted. After all, there’d be no fighting over Peter if Peter was Wade’s. Because the top dog of this _Lord of the Flies_ pseudo-society would practically have to claim the prison’s newest boy-toy, wouldn’t he?

The mean-faced bastards who’d been circling Peter like wolves abruptly found their own breakfasts very interesting, sitting down and digging in. There were sighs of disappointment from the guys who’d been gunning for Peter, but even they appeared to agree that Peter calling Wade “Daddy” meant that all was right with the world. The celestial order had been restored.

“Um,” squeaked Wade, as if Peter himself were a celestial body that had crash-landed in Wade’s mashed potatoes. “Ha ha. What?”

Peter gathered up his courage, abandoned his tray and swung sideways on the bench, until he was straddling Wade’s lap.

Wade dropped his fork.

“Play along,” Peter whispered, his lips brushing Wade’s ear.

Wade was frozen again, doing his best impression of a pillar of salt. Eventually, he whispered back, hoarsely: “Play along with _what_?”

“If I go back out there unclaimed by you, I’ll be fair game for every single evil pervert in this hall, and I’ll get passed around until someone reckons I’m worth the trouble of fighting off all the other assholes.”

“Nobody fights assholes off, in here. They want to be _in_  assholes.”

“My point exactly.”

Wade turned his face until it wasn’t—quite—buried in Peter’s neck. Peter was frankly stunned that Wade still wasn’t taking advantage of this opportunity to establish sexual contact. Wade could even excuse it as being part of their charade. But he didn’t. There were a few crucial millimeters between his mouth and Peter’s throat, millimeters that Wade seemed to have no intention of bridging. “You’re terrifying,” Wade said. It sounded like a compliment.

“No, this whole freaking place is terrifying. I’m just trying to get by.” Peter exhaled shakily. He had to say it. He _had_ to. Wade’s apparent idealism when it came to not taking advantage of people wouldn’t outlast this playacting, or outweigh the fact that Wade hadn’t dipped his wick in a decade. Peter couldn’t reasonably demand that he help Peter for nothing. Besides, Peter had known it might come to this, hadn’t he? When he’d been sentenced to prison, and at his age? “I wouldn’t—wouldn’t mind if—sometimes, that is, as long as it’s non-penetrative—”

“Kid.” And suddenly, Wade’s voice was squeak-free, solid as a brick and just as immovable. “I’m not gonna charge you a sex fee just because you need a protector. If you need one, you’ve got one. No questions asked. You don’t have to take this little masquerade back with us to our cell.”

“Are you…” Peter goggled with amazement. “Are you saying you’re okay with pretending to nail me without actually nailing me?”

“If you’ve decided that’s what you’ve gotta do to stay intact in this junkyard, then, yeah. Why not?” A hint of amusement lightened Wade’s tone. “That, and I’ve never met anybody as unpredictable as you. This is gonna be fun.”

Wade thought _Peter_ was unpredictable? Wade? “Can’t say that’s much of a compliment. Compared to all those years you spent in solitary, even farming cabbages would be fun.”

“That’s the spirit!” Wade forgot to whisper, but those who overheard likely interpreted it as Wade accepting a blowjob. There was still a group of tattooed skinheads leering at Peter creepily, however, like they figured that if they ganged together, they might convince Wade to give Peter up. Like maybe Wade didn’t value Peter enough to take on the headache of fighting an entire group. Like Wade wasn’t being territorial enough to convince them to back the fuck off.

“Slap my ass,” Peter said, still _sotto voce_ , as Wade reenacted his freezing routine.

“Uh. Wha—”

“Please.”

Wade closed his eyes—as if he was physically pained—and brought his broad, hard palm down on Peter’s ass, but so gently that Peter didn’t wince like he’d been expecting to. “Is that enough for you, you li’l demon?”

Peter met the gazes of the skinheads over Wade’s shoulder. “Harder.”

Wade grumbled something about tall orders and _did_ make Peter wince, this time. The audible impact of the slap rocked Peter forward against Wade and made tears spring up in Peter’s eyes. “Sorry,” Wade mumbled, but Peter shook his head.

“That oughta do it,” Peter said, relief flooding him when even the most persistent of his “suitors” scowled and glanced away. Including the skinheads. “If they sense the slightest lack of, um, enthusiasm in your fondness for me, they’ll try to… fill the gap themselves.”

There was a beat of silence.

“Did you seriously just say that?” Wade said, the question emerging distinctly strangled. “Fill the gap? _Seriously?_ ”

Peter slid off Wade’s lap and sat back down on his now-throbbing behind, burying his flaming face in his hands. He hated it when he punned involuntarily. It had always been an embarrassing habit of his, especially when he was nervous. “Shut up,” he said, as Wade threw his head back and laughed.

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE! I'm so sorry I haven't been able to respond individually to everyone's comments, but I love and adore and appreciate them nonetheless! Thank you!

* * *

 

It hurt seeing Aunt May through a plastic pane. Peter would never see her again without a barrier between them—not for eight years, anyhow, but right now, eight years felt like forever. He’d never hug her again. He’d never smell her detergent-and-vanilla scent, never feel the softness of her old, overused cardigans, never hear her calling him down for breakfast, never hear her chuckle over how he still watched Saturday cartoons.

And what hurt the most? Was how _she_ was thinking the same things, looking back at Peter through the screen. It hurt to see that she clearly hadn’t slept in ages, that despite her carefully combed hair and Sunday best, her spirit was all but broken. She was holding herself together and pretending to be strong for Peter’s sake, but Peter recognized the bruised purple of the delicate, wrinkled skin beneath her tired eyes, eyes reddened by tears and sleeplessness. She’d been like that after Uncle Ben had died.

She’d already lost a husband. Now, she had lost a son.

But Peter was still alive. Perhaps that was crueler, that they were being kept apart, but not by something as insurmountable as death. The years stretched before them like a desert, seemingly unending, barren of each other’s company or comfort. Perhaps it was crueler that Aunt May could hope to hold him again, to bake him her famous apple pie, to have him in her life as anything but a hole in her heart.

No, Peter was being ridiculous. It was a kindness that he was still alive, that Aunt May didn’t have to mourn a more final loss. They would be reunited when he was free. He wouldn’t be the same Peter she had known before he’d gone to jail, but he’d still be _her_ Peter. He always would be.

“Hi, Aunt May,” Peter said, into the green two-way phone whose handle was greasy with the fingerprints of hundreds of prisoners. His voice cracked.

“Hi, sweetie.” Aunt May’s knuckles were white around her own receiver. “Where did you get that?”

Peter was briefly confused, but then he saw her focusing on his wrist. Where there was a very large handprint. Wade’s handprint, to be precise. Peter had demanded Wade leave it on him as a charm to protect him on the path between their cell and the visiting room. He’d forgotten that Aunt May would also wind up seeing it, not just the other inmates. “Oh,” Peter said, horrified, hating that the sleeves of these horrid prison shirts were short, that he couldn’t hide the mark or gloss over it as being of no significance. “Um. Nowhere.”

“Peter—”

“Can we… Can we please not have The Talk again? The prison version of it, anyway, that you gave me before I got sent away? I almost passed out when you started lecturing me on the complications of consent.”

“Honey,” Aunt May said, low and determined, “you will always, _always_ have me. No matter what happens to you, or is done to you. And you… You can tell me anything. Please tell me. It’s—it’s the only way I can still be with you, still help you—” Aunt May’s hand shook, and she had to grip the phone even tighter to prevent dropping it. “All I can do is listen,” she continued. “You might be compelled to protect me from the reality of what you’re going through, but don’t. For both our sakes, don’t. Just… Just tell me whatever you need to tell me. I won’t judge. I won’t pull away. I’ll never pull away from you.”

What Peter couldn’t explain was that he needed her to stay innocent, needed her to be ignorant of what he was going through. He needed her visits to be time away from jail and everything in it, not a rehashing of humiliating experiences he’d rather forget. What he needed from Aunt May was a glimpse into what life had been like before prison, and what it might be like again, after prison. What he needed the visiting room to be wasn’t a confessional, but a safe space where he was no longer Peter Parker, Convicted Criminal, just Peter Parker, Nerdy Nephew. He needed a safe space to be who he was, and not what prison was turning him into.

Of course, being Aunt May, she somehow saw all of that in his expression, and sighed. “I’m sorry. I was being intrusive. You don’t have to tell me. I just… I’m so useless, out here, unable to do even one damned thing for you.”

“ _Damned?_ ” Peter’s lips twitched into a smile. A somewhat wobbly smile, but a smile nonetheless. “Did you just swear, Aunt May? For shame. I’ve only been in jail a couple days, and I’m already a bad influence.”

“Peter.” Aunt May’s lips were twitching, too. “You couldn’t be a bad influence if you tried.”

_I’m influencing an otherwise nice serial killer into committing lewd acts he wouldn’t be committing if I weren’t asking for them._ Not that Peter could share that with Aunt May. And not because she couldn’t handle it, but because she’d probably smuggle herself and a meat cleaver into the prison in order to chop off Wade’s balls. Politely chop off Wade’s balls. Aunt May was unfailingly polite. “I’ve… found a friend?” That should reassure her. “Maybe?”

“You don’t sound very confident.”

“My cellmate’s an okay guy.”

Aunt May quirked an eyebrow. She was still pale, but she’d evidently resolved to humor Peter in his attempt at normalizing what was happening to him, like he was in a college dorm with a wacky roommate, and not in a maximum security prison with a former assassin obsessed with killing fellow criminals according to some weird personal code. “Just ‘okay’? What a ringing endorsement.”

“He’s got more morals than the others, at least. And he’s protective of me.”

Aunt May’s eyes narrowed. “Why is he protective of you?”

“Not because of sexual favors!” Peter said hurriedly, then winced at saying ‘sexual favors’ in front of his aunt. “He’s… He’s kind of totally against that, actually.” _As in, he murders people for it._

“Is he?” Aunt May relaxed. “That’s good.”

Their conversation branched off into other topics, like Gwen saying that she’d be visiting Peter soon, and Norman Osborn spewing bullshit to the media to defend the crimes of his son, Harry. The _Daily Bugle_ was the sole bastion of resistance against Harry’s narrative of rich-boy privilege, and wasn’t buckling under the pressure of being boycotted by any and all advertisers related to Oscorp, but Peter wondered how long they’d be able to resist a threatened shutdown. As it was said in the press: No advertising, no income.

When Aunt May left, it was as though she was taking a part of Peter with her—the best and the sweetest part, and what remained was a bitter husk. 

 

* * *

 

The exercise yard—or, as Peter had dubbed it, the graveyard—was simultaneously the most dangerous place in the prison and the most hilarious place. It was hilarious because it was like a bloody, brutal version of high school, and Peter, ever the outsider, had thought high school was brutal enough. But no, here the cliques were prepared to slaughter each other, and every movement or phrase seemed charged with a seething tension, with violence about to erupt.

Wade did weights while Peter hovered nervously with a sweaty towel, waiting on his apparent master. He was trying to decipher the sociopolitical ramifications of the racist skinheads playing particularly rough basketball with the Irish mafia. The men of the Mexican cartel egged them on, cheering anybody who landed an elbow in anybody else’s guts, but it was the Irish who were winning, with a rangy, Groot-like giant nailing dunk after dunk. 

What Peter hadn’t counted on was that, after winning the game, Pseudo-Groot would decide that his victory had earned him the right to mess with Peter. It was crazy, the things testosterone could make a man do. Like make him forget that Wade owned this joint.

As Pseudo-Groot swaggered toward him, Peter raised the towel like a matador would before a bull, but Pseudo-Groot only snatched it from him to towel himself dry. Ew. Second-hand sweat. Wade had mopped his brow with the same towel.

Wade slowly lowered his gazillion-pound bar, but Pseudo-Groot’s eyes were fixed on Peter, so maybe he didn’t notice the quiet menace making the very _air_ behind Peter vibrate.

“Urk,” said Peter, vocal chords choosing to fail him at the exact moment he should’ve said, _Get away, now, while you still can!_

“Jesus, you’re as cute as they come, aren’t you?” said Pseudo-Groot, lifting his disgusting, grotty towel to Peter’s face and caressing him with it while Peter gagged. Pseudo-Groot dragged the towel downward, over Peter’s chest and to his crotch, and said, in an Irish drawl that was somehow absolutely filthy: “Speaking of coming, do you even get to come, when your daddy does you? I bet he can’t make your pussy cream for him like I could. Whaddaya say?” A vile, piggish snigger. “Not that it matters what you say. Bet you squirt harder when you don’t want it.”

Before Peter could answer, a blur slammed into Pseudo-Groot and bore him to the ground—a blur that resolved itself into none other than Wade Wilson, who had a fist bearing down on Pseudo-Groot’s trachea, gradually crushing it.

“Care to say that again?” Wade said mildly.

Pseudo-Groot choked. And struggled. And choked some more. He might’ve been taller than Wade, but he obviously wasn’t stronger, because Wade simply didn’t budge, his powerful legs bracketing Pseudo-Groot’s thrashing body and keeping it trapped.

Peter glanced around wildly, but the guards stationed beyond the barbed-wire enclosure weren’t taking any action to save a life. If anything, they looked _expectant_ , and Peter—

Peter understood what was transpiring, in a flash so like lightning that the realization burned through him.

They were entrapping Wade. They wouldn’t stop Wade from doing a damn thing.

Which meant Peter had to do it, instead.

As Pseudo-Groot’s struggles weakened, Peter launched himself onto Wade’s back, wrapping his arms around Wade’s chest and saying: “Wade, stop. Wade. Stop. Please. You don’t—you don’t wanna do this.”

“Oh, but I really, really do.” Wade’s features were stark, feral, starved, nothing like the vaguely charming demeanor he normally projected, and his voice was both silky and utterly _vicious_. “It’s been a while since I got my fix.”

“F-first,” Peter said frantically, desperate to interrupt Wade’s berserker rage, “first of all, it’s deeply disturbing that you’re addicted to homicide, and secondly, what do you suppose will happen to me if you go into solitary?”

Wade… paused.

Pseudo-Groot gurgled.

“Four weeks, Wade. That’s the maximum period they could lock you up for. And the new rules state that nothing short of hospitalizing an inmate can land you in solitary. So if you beat up this dude any more and he goes into the infirmary, _you_ go into solitary. And I’m left out here. Alone.”

The inexorable descent of Wade’s fist reversed itself. Pseudo-Groot batted at Wade feebly and rolled to the side, wheezing, while the rest of the Irish goons rushed forward to reclaim him, even though they hadn’t had the courage to intervene earlier. Well, they certainly didn’t deserve the “SQUAD GOALS” T-shirt they’d been pretending to deserve during that basketball game.

(It wasn’t a real T-shirt that was up for grabs. It was just a funny image Peter had dreamt up, because his brain tended to ramble when it was panicked. And it was very, very panicked.)

Wade was dusting off his knees as he stood, surveying the yard and its inhabitants with a deceptively genial eye. They all, without exception, shrank back. “I once kept a Tamagotchi alive for 67 days. I’m sure I can do the same for you.”

“And what happens after 67 days?”

“Let’s not think about that, shall we?” Wade was abruptly his usual, friendly self. He was smiling ear-to-ear as he clapped Peter on the back, and Peter stumbled, his heart still pounding.

“This is why they gave me to you,” Peter said, hushed and appalled. “I’d be your motivation to control your behavior, or I’d be your reason to fucking _snap_ and give them an excuse to put you in solitary. Over and over again.” The deduction sickened him, as did the notion that Wade might doubt him. “You don’t… You don’t suspect I’m their accomplice, do you? That they offered me a deal for a shorter sentence as long as I slept with you and, and manipulated you?”

The sharpness returned to Wade’s eyes, and Peter quailed, but then that sharpness was gone. “Petey, lemme tell you a secret.” Wade leaned in, confidential and earnest. “I can smell lies.”

Peter blinked. “Wade. That’s what psychiatrists call an olfactory hallucination.”

“Oooh, you’re sassing me again. You must be feeling better. But no, I ain’t fronting, it’s practically my superpower. I can smell lies. And you don’t smell like a lie.”

“I resent the accusation that I smell,” Peter scoffed, before giving in and asking, “So what do I smell like?”

“The truth.” Wade’s hand rose, as if to hold Peter’s, but when Peter flinched, Wade withdrew. “The painful truth, even.” Wade’s mouth twisted with self-hatred. “I scared you. Sorry.”

“You didn’t—” No, that _would_ be a lie. Wade had definitely scared him. But what Peter couldn’t discern was whether he’d been scared of Wade himself, or scared of losing the protection Wade provided. Which made Peter feel like a conniving jerk, so he just patted Wade’s shoulder gingerly, like he was conveying to Wade that Wade didn’t frighten him all that much.

Wade went still, head slightly bowed, and Peter had the distinct impression of being a lion-tamer petting a ferocious animal. That shoulder was enormous, a mass of bunched-up muscle that rippled beneath Peter’s touch.

“That’s it, children, playtime’s over.” The chief guard sauntered up to the fence and unlocked the gate leading back into the dreary, grey-painted prison building they’d all been so eager to escape. As the prisoners piled back in, the guard smirked at Wade and said, “You’ve changed, Deadpool. This pretty little leash is wound tight around your neck, huh? Or is it around your dick?”

“I resent the accusation of being bondage equipment even _more_ ,” Peter said to Wade as the guard wandered off, and Wade chortled, ruffling Peter’s hair.

This time, Peter didn’t flinch.

He refused to.

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My heartfelt gratitude for all your lovely reviews! They motivate me to continue this story, just so I can share it with you. Thank you!
> 
> Oh, and the rating has been upped to "Explicit." Just in case you hadn't noticed. Ahem.

* * *

 

Nudity wasn’t something Peter had ever been comfortable with. Even in his furtive, pre-prison fantasies of dating and making love to a girl, he’d shied away from the fact that he’d have to get naked at some point. His body wasn’t anything to write home about, thin and bony and embarrassingly fragile as it was, and he knew that nobody would ever want to see it, much less touch it.

How wrong he’d been. Now, he wished the men around him didn’t want to see him. Or touch him.

The jail’s communal shower was nothing more than a display case, the water that sheeted down on Peter as translucent as glass, slicking his hair to his forehead as he tilted it up into the spray. He hoped that blinding himself with the deluge would give him the illusion of privacy, the illusion that he wasn’t being watched by every wannabe voyeur in the room, their gazes as heavy and palpable as a hundred greedy hands.

Wade tended to angle himself so that _his_ shape half-concealed Peter’s, but that wasn’t of much use, given that it only titillated the others. Necks craned to catch flashes of Peter’s form, not entirely eclipsed by Wade’s. Darting, hungry eyes followed every pass of the dry, unforgiving soap over Peter’s skin, and Peter turning away from them only encouraged them. It galled Peter that his unwillingness to expose himself was being perceived as submissive.

Which was why, after Wade’s display of savagery in the exercise yard had begun to lose its value as a deterrent—as all displays invariably did, requiring new displays every week—Peter resolved to take charge of how his body was perceived. If he couldn’t hide it, then he would exploit it for his own gain.

Peter still found it counterintuitive to consider his body a thing that was coveted, but if Peter could convince those that coveted it that it was beyond their coveting, it would be worth it.

Wouldn’t it?

At last, Peter would be in control of his performance on the stage, even if he couldn’t control the stage itself, or the cast of degenerate characters surrounding him. Besides, he couldn’t get what Pseudo-Groot had said out of his head—that Wade couldn’t please Peter sexually, and that Peter wasn’t in this arrangement with Wade because he was getting any pleasure out of it, but because he was being forced.

Peter’s lack of visible commitment to Wade was fanning the flames of speculation, and would inevitably inspire many Pseudo-Groots to approach Peter, hoping that Peter would… what? Sneak away from Wade for some nookie of his own? Appreciate that they were better in the sack? Why were jerks always so confident they were amazing at sex, anyway? It must be because their egos were bigger than their dicks.

Wade didn’t have that problem. Which was fortunate for Peter, or he’d be getting regularly rogered by his cellmate. His generously-endowed cellmate.

This was an opportunity for Peter to demonstrate his sincerity. Wade had demonstrated his “interest” in Peter often enough, but Peter—aside from that isolated lap-straddling episode a month ago—hadn’t displayed any interest of his own.

Until today. Today, Peter would take the initiative.

Partway through their typical shower, with Wade conspiring to move such that Peter was partially shielded by his bulk, Peter ducked under Wade’s arm and emerged into the open.

Wade peered down at him, puzzled, and shifted to cover Peter _again_ , like the world’s muscliest umbrella. But Peter didn’t crawl back into Wade’s shelter. He brought his bar of soap up, and up, and up, till it rested on Wade’s left pectoral.

“Please, sir,” Peter said for the benefit of their witnesses, looking directly at Wade. “Let me.”

Wade goggled at him. As the rushing of water drowned out any sounds from around them, Peter could almost believe that they were on their own, in private, and that this was a man Peter had picked up at a club—another furtive fantasy he’d never gotten to fulfill, and likely never would. He’d have to pretend that Wade was his type, that they’d been on a fun date, and that they were showering together in Wade’s apartment before falling into bed.

It was a scenario that seemed oddly plausible with Wade’s eyes wide and startlingly vulnerable above him, with the concerned pinch at the corner of Wade’s upper lip, the _Are you sure?_ radiating off Wade like a subliminal message.

“Let me,” Peter repeated, more breathlessly than he’d planned. He swept the soap sideways, over Wade’s chest, blushing when his thumb grazed Wade’s nipple and Wade jolted.

Wade grabbed Peter’s wrist. “Peter,” he warned, but halted when Peter carefully rotated his wrist within Wade’s grasp, leaning in to lick Wade’s knuckles. Asking. Telling. Showing.

Wade released him.

Peter exhaled in relief, continuing to soap Wade’s torso, his fingers slipping along scar-tissue and muscle and searingly hot flesh, hotter than the water sluicing down on them. When Peter was finished, he began to kneel, intending to soap Wade’s legs, but Wade stopped him.

Wade was breathing fast, and Peter didn’t have to glance downward to know that Wade was getting hard. Peter could _feel_ it, a blunt, unfamiliar nudge against his thigh, and there was a sudden, terrified roaring in his ears, his pulse even louder than the shower they were under. His own breathing ratcheted up to match Wade’s, and he realized, with a dazed, distant sort of disbelief, that he was getting hard, too.

This couldn’t be happening. This was _insane_. This was—

This was Peter attempting to reclaim his own body. Was it any wonder that it was responding?

_It’s simple stimulus_ , Peter told himself. _Just stimulus, that’s all. It’d happen with anyone._

“Not now,” Wade rasped, which made no sense until Peter remembered that Wade hadn’t allowed him to kneel. “Up here,” Wade said thickly. “Stay up here.”

Oh. Wade was preventing Peter from putting himself in a position where he might be pressured into performing fellatio. That was what Peter inferred, anyhow, and he was grateful for Wade’s foresight, so he did as Wade had commanded and stayed upright.

Peter let the soap fall to the floor and ran both palms down Wade’s midriff, the abs there flexing in response. He dug his nails lightly into Wade’s hips, which juddered, and Peter permitted his own hips to arch, narrowly missing pressing their erections together. That, Peter didn’t want to do with an audience. _Or at all_ , Peter reminded himself.

As Peter’s fingertips slid across Wade’s scars, some of which appeared to be particularly sensitive, Peter kept his attention on Wade. Wade returned it, his eyes darkening, gaining a depth and an intensity that was mesmerizing.

They weren’t even—

What were they doing? What was Peter doing? It was as though his identity was being stripped from him with every second he persisted in doing what he was doing, in _letting Wade look into him_ as he did it. Finally, it grew to be too much. Peter buried his face in Wade’s neck, concealing whatever wretched, helpless expression he was wearing, biting Wade’s collarbone in retaliation because he felt just a little vengeful.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. Yes, Peter had started it and it was therefore Peter’s fault, so getting pissed off at Wade was pointless, but Peter wasn’t supposed to… to react like this. Like he was still reacting, pre-come welling out of him only to be washed away, the relentless beating of the water hurting his swollen cock as much as soothing it. He moaned.

“Right, that does it,” Wade growled, the disciplined stillness he’d been straining to maintain shattering as he broke into a whirlwind of motion, hauling Peter toward the exit. Peter caught a glimpse of slack-jawed spectators, most of whom were jacking off to the spectacle Peter had provided them. Pitched high enough for those spectators to hear, Wade announced: “I’m gonna fuck you silly in our cell.”

Wade’s statement sent a spike of shocked heat through Peter that had him gasping, but Wade only propelled him into the changing room, threw a towel at Peter for him to hastily wipe himself with, and tossed Peter his clothes. When they were dressed, Wade saluted the guards on the way out and led Peter straight to their cell, where Peter, waking up from the inexplicable trance he’d been in, swiftly regained his ability to speak.

“W-wait,” Peter said, as Wade slammed the metal door shut and crowded Peter against it, forearms flat on either side of Peter.

“What the fuck was that?” demanded Wade. “You can’t just… Did you think that example of blatant exhibitionism would put ’em off?”

“You aren’t touching me,” Peter blurted, because that was what popped into his brain. Wade was standing close to him, but was decidedly—conspicuously—not touching him. Anywhere.

“Damn right, I ain’t touching you.” Wade’s voice was rough, even angry, but Peter had a hunch that it wasn’t Peter he was angry with. Wade’s anger was aimed inward, at himself, probably because Wade was still aroused, pupils dilated and hard-on tenting his pants. “You don’t want any of this. You’re just a stupid kid playing with fire.”

_That_ annoyed Peter enough to distract him from the minor detail that he was still aroused, too. And that a dozen or so inmates had seen him aroused, which he’d freak out about later, when he didn’t have to prove to Wade that he wasn’t an ickle baby unicorn. “Yeah? Well, this ‘stupid kid’ won’t keep getting hit on by guys who think you aren’t satisfying me, so they should satisfy me instead.”

Wade frowned at him. “And you figured climbing me in public would fix that?”

“I’d rather fix _them_ , as in, neuter all of them. But I can’t. This is the best I can do, show off how happy our fake prison marriage is.”

Wade withdrew, as if just recognizing that he’d been caging Peter in, and Peter surprised himself by raising a hand to draw Wade back, a hand he quickly lowered. “Didn’t it occur to you,” Wade said, “to, I dunno, run it past me first? You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

_I nearly gave you an orgasm_ , Peter didn’t say, because that would be below the belt. Literally and metaphorically. God, he was punning again. He must be more anxious than he’d thought. “Didn’t you say you liked my unpredictability?”

Wade huffed. And didn’t answer. He climbed into his bunk and said, shortly, “I’mma sleep. Wake me up for dinner.”

Except that Wade didn’t sleep. He was as lifeless as a stone, lying on his back with his eyelids shut and his limbs motionless, but there was a tension strung through him, tight and unnatural. Peter couldn’t be completely certain that Wade was awake, but he could somehow intuit that Wade was.

It was awful. Peter had never genuinely cheesed Wade off, before. He’d gone against Wade’s wishes today, all but molesting him. Wade’s cooperation notwithstanding, Peter had just… imposed himself.

Eventually, after an eternity of dealing cards and playing against himself on their rickety table, Peter mumbled, “I’m sorry.”

Minutes passed. The five of diamonds trembled in Peter’s grip, because he was shaking. He was beginning to comprehend how momentous the whole incident was, and how Wade had clearly desired more but hadn’t taken it, despite Peter—at least physically—desiring more as well.

Then, Wade sighed and sat up on his bunk. He was rubbing his temples, and he seemed… sad, of all things. Sad and guilty.

“Nah,” Wade said. “You don’t gotta apologize. I wasn’t mad at you, Petey. I was mad at myself. And I wasn’t giving you the silent treatment, if that was what it looked like. I just—I didn’t reckon it was a good idea to look at you, or talk to you, when I couldn’t… when I couldn’t restrain myself.” Wade folded his hands loosely in his lap, and there was a strange powerlessness to them, in spite of all the power Wade had in this hellish place.

Peter made an executive decision. He discarded his cards, got up, and went to Wade. He knelt in front of Wade, just as he’d tried to do in the shower, and took those huge, scarred hands in his, offering comfort to the one who had only ever protected him—from others and now from himself.

It had been the final test, although Peter hadn’t been aware, until this very moment, that he’d been subconsciously testing Wade. He’d been afraid that Wade’s tolerance had limits, that Wade would succumb to the temptation of having Peter around him, that he’d revert to a beastly, atavistic state, a state that everybody else in this prison expected him to occupy.

Wade didn’t say a word, letting his hands be held, and Peter held them, the both of them unmoving, until the bell rang for dinner.

 

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Points of inaccuracy in this and other chapters:
> 
> **1.** In this story, state prisons absorb severe budget cuts by cutting down on what they feel are non-essential expenditures, such as employing IT Security Officers. Basically, there is little to no cybersecurity in public prisons. Instead, they restrict any access the prisoners may have to computers, because that’s cheaper than allowing the prisoners access and then expending resources to monitor that access.
**2.** Conversations between prisoners and visitors are not monitored, either, due to a law having been passed in years prior, protecting the civil liberties and visitation rights of prisoners.
**3.** Everything I have said above is bullshit in the real world. Thank you for reading, regardless!

> 
> Oh, and Dopinder is an Indian _just like me_ , so I’m stoked to be writing him!  
> 

* * *

 

Peter’s good behavior had gotten him access to the computer lab, although he suspected that the “good behavior” he was being rewarded for was keeping Wade out of trouble, and not for behaving properly himself. Peter’s performance in the shower definitely hadn’t been good behavior, not by any stretch of the imagination; if it hadn’t been for Wade acting as crowd control, Peter might’ve incited a riot.

Nonetheless, here Peter was, in the lab—precisely where he’d been yearning to be, surrounded by the familiar, muted buzzing of computers on standby. It was soothing. Therapeutic. Even if the computers were mid-nineties IBM desktops that resembled museum exhibits. Aside from that slight anachronism, the lab was perfect; it was blissfully empty, an oasis where Peter wasn’t perpetually in the horny crosshairs of his fellow inmates.

But good behavior wasn’t the only reason Peter had gotten into the lab. The prison director delegated non-essential prison-running responsibilities to the various inmates, responsibilities that were apportioned based on the inmates’ abilities. Peter’s massively nerdy CV marked him out as the only inmate qualified to like fixing networking problems and doing the graphics editing required for the publication of prison pamphlets, hygiene posters and toilet signs. There were operation manuals for the guards, information leaflets for the visitors and routine schedules for the prisoners.

Most of the documentation was generic and was provided by the state government, but prison-specific documentation had to be published by the prison itself. For that, they needed someone capable of using publishing software, but why would they waste their less-than-adequate funding on hiring an independent contractor when they could simply source a tech expert from within their own facility?

Prisoners with no specialized expertise did the grunt-work, such as ironing the laundry, helping out in the kitchen or cleaning the toilets. Wade—whose sole specialization was dismemberment—had no professional experience that was practically applicable in the prison, and was therefore relegated to janitorial duties.

Meanwhile, Peter, who was at the very pinnacle of techie talent, was receiving the royal treatment of having the computer lab all to himself. There were about twelve computers in total, a minuscule number considering that the prison population exceeded two thousand. Even more puzzling was the utter absence of any of those prisoners from the lab—sans Peter, of course.

Any prisoner that requested computer access was supposed to get it, but Peter guessed that it was easier for the prison to cut off access on behavioral grounds, just like Peter had been _given_ access on behavioral grounds. That would obey the letter of the law without obeying its spirit, which was, ultimately, to maintain free speech. Or the illusion of free speech.

Peter’s job today was to fix a network error that was playing havoc on the prison’s wireless printers. He logged into the admin account with the details he was supplied, ecstatic to be utilizing his mind again, only to be interrupted ten minutes later by a particularly antsy-looking guard. Peter belatedly noticed the glass-windowed cubicle at the far corner of the lab, from where the guard had presumably emerged.

“Hi,” said the guard, shifting from foot to foot like a fidgety schoolboy.

Peter blinked. He’d never seen a guard exhibit such body language before. Usually, guards did their utmost to project dominance and confidence—unless it was in Wade’s presence, which, well. Wade wasn’t exactly conducive to people’s confidence. “Hi,” Peter echoed hesitantly.

“I’m Dopinder. Like, um. The badge?” The guard tapped his own badge. “Like the badge I’m wearing says. Mr. Wilson told me about you. Uh, indirectly told me about you. Through the grapevine.”

_Mr. Wilson?_ Not Deadpool?

“Which is to say, if you need anything? You ask me. I owe Mr. Wilson my life, so. If you’re his partner, that means I owe you.”

Peter… was still blinking. “You owe him your life? How?”

“He saved me from a knife in the stomach, courtesy of Ivan the Terrible.” As if sharing a secret, Dopinder bent closer to Peter to confide: “The name really was Ivan. And he really was terrible.”

Wow. “Wade did that? That’s amazing.”

“Then, he saved my marriage.”

“Your _marriage_?”

“My wife Gita wouldn’t be my wife if Mr. Wilson hadn’t advised me to… er, never mind what he advised me to do. But it worked. So, here I am. Proud father of two, proud survivor of a potential shish-kebabing. I mean, I like shish-kebabs as much as the next guy, but I’d rather not _be_ one.” Dopinder beamed at Peter, alarmingly starry-eyed. “And here you are, his very own Gita! I prayed that Mr. Wilson would find love! He deserves it.”

Peter winced. “Ha ha,” he said. “Yeah. He… He deserves so much.” Like several tranquilizer darts in a row, just to prevent him from going apeshit every few seconds. But the biggest revelation here was that Wade was capable of making friends. Diehard loyal friends, even. Would wonders never cease?

“So!” Dopinder bounced on his feet with all the busy eagerness of a squirrel. “Can I be of assistance?”

Peter automatically opened his mouth to say: _No, thank you_. But then the rest of his brain caught up, and he enquired: “Are you the main guard of the lab?”

“The only guard, more like. Hardly anyone ever visits, which is why they haven’t assigned any more guards here. All I do is stare at computers all day. Not at porn! Not at porn on those computers.” Dopinder was painfully earnest. “That would be a betrayal of Gita.”

Uh-huh. “And the prison monitors all multimedia access, doesn’t it?”

Dopinder coughed. “Technically.”

“Technically?”

“As in, I’m the only guard here, so it’s up to me to make the rounds, to monitor usage, to check if anybody’s downloading child porn or whatever.” Dopinder gestured at the empty seats. “But there’s nobody to monitor.”

Peter smiled. “Except me.”

Dopinder’s eyes widened with dawning realization. He smiled back. “Except you.”

 

* * *

 

When Peter returned to the cell, he was all but vibrating with energy. Wade, who’d just gotten back from mopping the mess hall, squinted at him.

“Do computers do it for you? ’Cause you’ve never been this excited.”

Peter grinned at Wade. “Why, hello there, Mr. Stabbity Stab McStab.”

“Why is my middle name also Stab?”

“Why the heck not? Multiple puncture wounds are your thang. Anyhow, I met Dopinder. I couldn’t trust that he wasn’t lying when he said he owed you—it could’ve been just another setup by the guards—so I didn’t run my masterplan past him. Yet. Figured I’d confirm his veracity with you, first.”

“Veracity? Damn. The way you talk, Petey, I swear…”

“Is it true? Is Dopinder your man on the inside?”

Wade shrugged. “He sneaks me chocolates, sometimes. Or weed cookies. His wife bakes the most incredible weed cookies.”

“Weed—” Peter spluttered. “That’s not what this conversation is about! It’s about me finally participating in the prison economy. About me finally having a skill to trade.”

Wade quirked an eyebrow.

“Not _that_ skill!”

“You don’t have it, anyway. Virgin.”

“Screw you. Not.”

“So what’s your masterplan?”

Peter paced the length of the cell, too energized to sit down. “How many prisoners do you reckon are satisfied by their visitations?”

“Like, conjugally satisfied? Not many.”

“No, I meant… emotionally satisfied.”

“You think these assholes are capable of emotions?”

“When it comes to their kids, yes. Their families. Their homes.”

Wade regarded Peter in puzzlement. “And this is useful to you, because…?”

“Because! I can reclaim some of my agency! Not all of it, not while everyone classifies me as your pet catamite, but some of it. I can hack the system. It won’t even be a challenge. If I can arrange virtual correspondence with the prisoners’ families, correspondence that goes beyond what is allowed by the prison, maybe I can launch my own business. Maybe I won’t constantly need your protection, if my being undamaged is of importance to enough inmates that they leave me alone.”

“And what if that’s just wishful thinking?”

Peter huffed impatiently. “Can’t you be, like, more supportive?”

“I can be supportive!” Wade straightened, comically attentive. “Lay it on me.”

“What if I start with the toughest nuts to crack? The dons. The leaders. The bosses. The guys who may’ve been banned from regular spousal or familial visits for their misconduct. They’ll be the most desperate to communicate with their folks. Besides, if I get them to fall in line, their lackeys will follow.” Peter smirked. “Brilliant, no?”

An indecipherable expression flashed across Wade’s features, a mixture of pride and affection and something else, something dark and possessive and not altogether safe, that momentarily stole Peter’s breath. “Brilliant.”

_Ignore the weirdness. Ignore and deny._ “Genius, even.”

Wade appeared to be going with the ignore-and-deny methodology, too. He sighed mournfully. “My little bird’s gonna fly the nest, someday.”

“This prison, a nest? It’s nowhere near as nurturing.”

“Okay, then. My little chicken’s gonna fly the coop.”

“And you’re the chickenhawk, I presume?”

“’Course I am.”

Peter snorted. “Please. You couldn’t take advantage of me if you wanted to. Which you don’t.”

“You’re painting me as some sorta saint.”

“An ultra-violent, serial-killing, mass-murdering saint.”

“That’s more like it.”

Peter dropped down beside Wade on the lower bunk, his shoulder brushing Wade’s companionably. “I might need you to make some inroads for me, though. Just to begin with. Initial introductions. Because if I just walk up to that dude with the hair like a Davy Crockett hat—”

“The Corleone heir?”

“That’s him. If I just walk up to him, he’ll assume I’m offering him sex, and that’s not an assumption I can afford for him to have. But if _you_ approach him on my behalf, there’s a chance he’ll actually listen to you before siccing his goons on you.”

“And even if he does sic ’em on me, I can fight them off?”

Peter gave Wade a thumbs-up. “That’s the spirit! Not that it’ll come to that, but…”

“Did I mention you’re terrifying?”

“You may have done so. A couple of times.”

“This is one of those times.”

“Aw, just admit I’m your type.”

“You’re my type.” Wade must’ve intended it as a joke, but it came out so unexpectedly _serious_ that even Wade seemed stunned by it.

Peter’s banter dried up in his throat. “Oh,” he said lamely, abruptly over-conscious of where his arm rested against Wade’s, a casual intimacy he wouldn’t have dared when they’d met. If Peter withdrew, it’d be taken as a rejection, but if he didn’t, it’d be taken as… what? Tacit permission? And why didn’t that frighten Peter as much as it used to?

Or at all?

But before Peter could move, frozen as he was with indecision, Wade decided for him.

Wade got up and went to their table, where their previous card game was still laid out, surveying it as if contemplating resuming it.

He’d saved Peter again. Saved Peter from making a choice. He kept doing that, like he was confident that Peter wouldn’t choose him, and that, even if he did, it wouldn’t be for the right reasons.

For a maximum security prison detainee with the bloodiest criminal record in modern American history, Wade Wilson sure was obsessed with doing the right thing. The right thing by Peter, at any rate.

And it was… It was getting to Peter. Arguably, it’d been getting to him all along, but ever since the Shower Incident last week, Peter had been preternaturally aware of Wade’s presence. Of Wade’s _body_ , especially, big and broad and unyielding as Peter now knew it was.

He’d been having dreams about it. Which was freaky and bizarre, given that Wade’s body was the stuff of nightmares. But Peter’s dreams about it weren’t nightmares. They were blurry, as if with water, and there were calluses sliding over his skin, fingertips that skated idly along Peter’s hips. They wandered up to toy with his nipples, and then drifted down the curve of his spine, dipping between his thighs, teasing and maddening and gentle. Always gentle.

In the dreams, Wade’s touch set off what felt like subcutaneous flares, islands of pooling heat inside Peter that spread and merged like seals of molten wax, like brands of ownership. Peter himself was nothing but a throbbing brand under Wade’s hands, freshly seared and turning redder, hotter. It almost hurt. It had Peter shuddering in waves that peaked and passed, only to rise again. And again. Peter babbled nonsense, as if in a delirium, and Wade’s voice was in his ear, issuing instructions that Peter couldn’t quite understand, commands to be good, to be patient.

Peter inevitably woke up from those dreams sweating and hard, but at least he was on the upper bunk, so he didn’t have to suffer the humiliation of Wade seeing him in that condition.

Hearing him, however…

“I don’t… I don’t ever sleep-talk, do I?” Peter asked, and dread swooped low in his belly when Wade paused before answering.

“No,” said Wade, and it was a kind answer, a considerate answer.

Just like Wade’s hands in Peter’s dreams were kind—implacably kind—even if that was what made them cruel.

“Right.” Peter looked away, face burning. “Nice to know.”

 

* * *


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I KNOW I SAID THEY’D BE KISSING IN THIS CHAPTER BUT THEN PLOT HAPPENED AND GUESS WHAT? THEY’LL BE KISSING IN THE _NEXT_ CHAPTER
> 
> SORRY AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE

* * *

 

Pedro Corleone was unusual for a mob boss, in that he wasn’t very physically impressive. Instead, he was lean and wiry and not much taller than Peter. Pedro would’ve been unremarkable but for his smile, which was the sort of smile normally seen on a shark, sharp and hooked and predatory. He had cold grey eyes that were uncannily intelligent, and his gaze had a distinctly steely gleam, like the gleam of a paring knife.

It was both scary and encouraging—scary because Pedro maintained command of no less than twenty prisoners despite all of them plainly outsizing him, and encouraging _because_ he maintained command of no less than twenty prisoners despite all of them plainly outsizing him.

Hey, if Pedro could do it, maybe Peter could do it, too. Not that Peter wanted a bunch of slavering attack dogs at his beck and call. One was more than enough. _Wade_ was more than enough. And Peter couldn’t even handle him, most of the time.

Not yet.

Regardless, the plan was underway.

Wade and Peter approached the Corleone clique in the exercise yard, where Pedro and his pals (Pedro And His Pals, god, it was like the name of a boyband) were posing intimidatingly on the stairs descending into the enclosure. Pedro sat in the middle, with a pair of towering thugs leaning on the stairwell on either side of him, built like brick shithouses and smelling about as fragrant. They must be Pedro’s bodyguards.

“Here we go,” Wade said under his breath, halting in front of the stairs. Peter took up a position next to him, not behind him, because Peter had to present himself as Wade’s equal.

Yeah, right.

Peter was so nervous, he had butterflies in his stomach. Except that butterflies weren’t carnivorous enough for the gonna-puke anxiety he was having. Piranhas were more like it. He had piranhas in his stomach, actively eating it. It would be completely devoured in about four seconds.

He battled the urge to reach out and hang onto Wade’s sleeve, like a child hanging onto his teacher’s sleeve on his first day at school. But Peter couldn’t appear vulnerable, so he stood apart from Wade with his back straight and his stance mostly relaxed. Gone were the days of cowering in Wade’s shadow.

Peter had to present himself as a businessman capable of standing on his own. Somewhat. Wade would have to be his frontman, at least to begin with, but Peter would take the reigns of the operation soon enough. He had to convince Pedro that he had it in him.

Even if Peter wasn’t sure he did. This was a whole new world to him, and not the kinda whole new world Aladdin would sing about in Disney movies. This was Peter’s only foray into crime. Not _real_ crime, in which anyone came to harm, but crime nonetheless. Never before in his life had Peter deliberately committed an illegal act.

But if Peter didn’t do it, he’d be all but volunteering himself for a brutal deflowering if Wade was ever separated from him—if Wade was ever placed in solitary or sent to the hospital ward or simply moved to a different cell. Peter had to have some skill of value to trade other than loaning out his ass, or he’d be a prison bitch forever.

“Deadpool,” said Pedro calmly, even as the Tweedledum-and-Tweedledee duo flanking him flexed their muscles showily. “To what do I owe this dubious pleasure?”

“Actually,” Wade began, but before he could recite the speech he and Peter had rehearsed, Peter surprised himself by stepping forward and holding out his hand.

“Actually, I’m the guy that’s here to meet you,” Peter said. “Mr. Corleone. Sir.”

Maybe it was instinct that made Peter do it. Maybe it was the sense that mafia dons didn’t respect men who couldn’t speak for themselves. Or maybe it was the sense that Wade might tack on, _Or I’ll beat yo ass_ , as a threat to force Pedro to cooperate.

Whatever it was, it worked. Miraculously.

Because, after raising an eyebrow at Peter’s presumption, Pedro just smirked and shook Peter’s hand. “Greetings,” Pedro said indulgently, as if to a toddler. “So you’re the infamous Polly Parker.”

_Polly?_ Were they feminizing Peter now, further oppressing him with the misogyny that had been used to oppress women for millennia? If Pedro was testing Peter by calling him that, too bad. Peter wasn’t going to protest indignantly, wasn’t going to clam up, wasn’t going to go on the defensive.

“That I am,” Peter retorted easily, like it didn’t bother him. And it didn’t. There was nothing remotely offensive about being compared to a woman, even if most of these losers thought there was. Perhaps Pedro would deem it a failure, that Peter didn’t break out into a roaring, macho, heteronormative rage to defend his own masculine honor, but Peter didn’t see the point of banging his nonexistent pecs like a wannabe King Kong.

Again, to Peter’s luck, Pedro seemed to find Peter’s response entertaining. With a quirk of that shark’s smile, Pedro said, “I take it that you’re here to make a business proposition? You have the look of a peddler with something to sell.” Pedro leered at Peter appreciatively. “Other than the obvious.”

Wade growled, and Peter elbowed him in the guts to shut him up. It didn’t escape Peter’s notice that the majority of Pedro’s gang gaped at the gesture, like Peter had just elbowed a dragon and gotten away with it.

Peter coughed delicately. “I’m, uh, I’m sorry to hear that your… I heard that you were banned from receiving visitors after the, er, after the incident with the smuggled drugs.”

Pedro’s eyes iced over.

Peter shivered.

“Yes, and?” Now Pedro’s voice was icy, too.

Shit. Was Peter screwing this up? _Shit_. But if it upset Pedro so much to be denied access to his family, he’d be even more desperate to hear from them, wouldn’t he? “I can fix that,” Peter said as quickly as he could, before Pedro murdered him. Not that Wade would let Pedro murder him. “I can bring you photos, pictures, even videos of your family. And send your replies to them. If you’re interested.”

Tweedledee, on Pedro’s left, scoffed incredulously. “What’re you gonna do, princess, connect ’em telepathically?”

“No,” said Peter slowly, trying not to sound like he was talking down to an ignoramus. “I’m going to connect them _virtually_. Ever heard of the internet?” Whoops. That did sound sarcastic and condescending.

Tweedledee snarled.

Peter… refused to quail. Even if Tweedledee could pulverize him with the weight of his jowls alone.

Pedro was watching the exchange with amusement. “You’re in charge of the computer lab, aren’t you?” Pedro asked, clearly better informed than his goons. The ice had vanished from his voice, thank god. “You think you can hack the system?”

“I can hack anything,” Peter boasted, openly projecting the bravado he felt about the only thing he _had_ any bravado to feel. He was great at technology; why not flaunt it?

“Can you? But how’ll you get the photos and videos to me if I’m not allowed in the lab?”

“Ahem. There’s a guard.” Peter couldn’t spill Dopinder’s identity, but he could mention Dopinder subtextually. “I, I might have this guard sneaking an iPhone into the prison. An iPhone I’ll hook up to the network, but with a rerouted ISP that remains untrackable.” When Pedro frowned at the jargon, Peter hastened to explain: “Basically, you’ll have the ability to correspond with your family even if the jail has banned you from doing so.”

Pedro went quiet. Very, very quiet. There was a new intensity, a frightening fascination in his scrutiny of Peter. “Well, well, well,” Pedro murmured.

Well, _what?_ “You could see your children,” Peter continued doggedly, because if he wasn’t a sufficiently effective salesman, then this deal would go south, as would any hopes Peter had of ever being his own man. “Wish them a happy birthday, tell them you miss them—”

“I don’t have children,” Pedro said dismissively. “But I do have a grandmother.”

A… A what?

Pedro Corleone. Had a grandma. That he evidently doted on.

The heir of the Corleone was a granny’s boy.

What the hell?

“Okay,” Peter said weakly, because, given the matching glares worn by every single member of Pedro’s posse, the importance and unmockability of Pedro’s grandmother was a universal law, and anybody who poked fun at her would be killed in a deserted corridor. “I have an aunt,” Peter said meaninglessly, and for some reason, _that_ made Pedro chuckle.

“Give me a week, Mr. Parker. I’ll ponder your proposal, and whether I’ll be willing to take a chance on it being a potential conspiracy, a plot hatched by the prison to surveil my correspondence with my famiglia.”

Whoa. Pedro did enjoy being eloquent, didn’t he? He must have a private book collection back at the Corleone estate; he gave off the aura of an avid reader. But the best part was… “You—you called me Mr. Parker.”

Pedro grinned. “Do you prefer Polly?”

“No!” Peter hurried to say. “No. I mean. Whatever.”

“Farewell, Mr. Whatever. I’ll send a messenger when I’m ready to negotiate.”

And that was it.

That was _it_ , and as Peter walked away, victory surging within him like a sparkly wave of sparkles, he had to suppress the impulse to high-five Wade like they were delinquents who’d pulled off a prank.

Wade was uncharacteristically silent, though.

It wasn’t until they got to their cell that Peter whirled around and hugged Wade, as tightly and fiercely as he could, shocking himself by how much he needed to do it. He was overcome with gratitude for what Wade had done, even if Wade had just stood there as Peter had spun his tale.

But that was precisely it. Wade had _stood there_. Wade had supported him, without taking the spotlight from him, without controlling or overtaking him, without speaking for him, without even defending him. Wade had stood by as Peter had taken the lead.

Wade had just deferred to Peter, in full view of everybody, and that had to be why Pedro had listened to Peter, really listened to him, rather than dismissing him outright. If the resident badass serial killer figured Peter was worth listening to, maybe he was worth listening to.

“Wha—” Wade rocked slightly at the impact of Peter’s overenthusiastic tackle. “Peter?”

“Um,” said Peter, still wrapped around Wade like a monkey around a tree. “I know I haven’t said this before, but thank you. For everything. You’re the best.”

“I’m the best?” Wade laughed humorlessly. “Even though I can’t change what people say about you? Even though I’m the cause for them saying it? That you’re—you’re—”

“That I’m Polly Parker? Like I said to Corleone, whatever. That isn’t what matters.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Wade. This is me, expressing affection for you. Accept it. Or have you forgotten how to hug?”

Tentatively, after a few minutes of Peter essentially hanging from Wade’s shoulders like a sweater from a coat-hanger—because yeah, Wade was just that tall—Wade began hugging Peter back.

Or to be more accurate, he began gathering Peter up, lifting Peter inch by inch, until Peter’s toes were dangling above the floor. Then, Wade just… held Peter and held him and _held_ him, and it occurred to Peter that he had failed to specify a duration for the hug.

It also occurred to him that he was glad he hadn’t.

This was the body that was always shielding him, that was always there for him, an unspoken promise of protection even if it did nothing but hover in the background like it had today.

This was _Wade’s body_ , and suddenly, Peter was confronted with the reality that, somewhere along the line, it had become precious to him. Every scar, every mark, every sinew. All of it.

Wade had become precious to him, not only as a shelter but as a companion, and that was…

That had to be why Peter kept the hug going, far past when it should’ve become awkward.

It never did become awkward. Even when they gradually drew apart, it wasn’t awkward, in spite of the fact that the close contact had warmed Peter up in more ways than one. The same warmth was reflected in Wade’s eyes. There was no self-conscious throat-clearing, no manly mutual backslapping to distance themselves from each other. It was just comfortable.

And if the tension in Wade’s limbs had eased, like Peter had hugged away what had been troubling him, then it was perfectly natural for Peter to be happy that he’d brought Wade peace.

Yes, happy. He was happy that Wade was happy. That they were happy. Together.

_This is getting complicated, Peter_ , an imaginary Aunt May warned him from inside his own head.

But when had Peter ever been good at heeding warnings?

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pedro’s grandma isn’t the sweet old lady Peter’s picturing. She’s a bloodthirsty tyrant with a soft voice and pastel cardigans, and she’s the real don of the family. Pedro worships her.
> 
> More on her later.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so thankful for all your reviews and your support. You're my reason for writing this story. Thank you.

* * *

 

Waiting for Pedro’s messenger was akin to waiting for a “not guilty” verdict in a court trial, and Peter knew what that was like. Of course, he hadn’t gotten what he’d been waiting for, then. He was increasingly terrified that it’d happen again.

Wade was getting agitated, too, like it was his neck on the chopping block, not Peter’s.

Peter tried reassuring him by saying: “Technically, it’s my ass on the line, not my neck, so. Anatomy. Um. Anatomy’s important?”

But Wade wasn’t as easy to charm with humor as he usually was, and he got all bristly whenever someone so much as looked at Peter wrong, which was counter-productive as it got Wade formal reprimands that were noted on his record. Enough strikes on his record, and he’d be up for an extension of his already eternal sentence.

The latest reprimand occurred when an inmate casually slapped Peter’s ass while walking past him in a hallway, and Wade literally just picked the man up and _threw him against a wall_. Hard enough for him to bounce off of it.

It was a timely reminder that Wade wasn’t altogether tame, even if he hugged Peter like Peter was necessary to him, and even if he would never hurt Peter, not even on pain of death. It didn’t mean he couldn’t hurt other people. Or that he didn’t want to.

When Peter finally got Wade to chill out—or maybe just not be in permanent hitman mode—Wade was vaguely apologetic about it, but his eyes were still feverish with rage. The air around him crackled with the potential for violence, like the electric atmosphere before a storm. The man he’d thrown crawled away, pale and shaking, and Peter hung onto Wade with a straining grip. It wasn’t easy to hold back a body so much larger than his.

It wasn’t like Peter didn’t get why Wade had snapped. It was because Peter was afraid, palpably afraid, and his fear was setting Wade off, driving Wade into an overprotective frenzy.

Not that it was Peter’s fault. Because it wasn’t. Wade would probably kick his _own_ ass if Peter began blaming himself for Wade’s actions. So Peter didn’t, but he was mature enough to differentiate between causality and responsibility. He wasn’t responsible for Wade’s actions, even if he was, indirectly, causing them.

That was it. He wasn’t responsible for Wade, and Wade wasn’t responsible for him.

It was just that they cared about one another, and that made it… challenging. To be objective. To not feel a tug within themselves when the other was unsettled, to not feel the compulsion to remove all the obstacles in the other’s path.

Like Wade was compelled to remove all the obstacles in Peter’s path. Even if Wade’s definition of “remove” was closer to Peter’s definition of “kill.”

They might as well be starring in a dystopian, gay, prison version of [_Lost in Translation_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_in_Translation_\(film\)). With Wade as a particularly menacing Bill Murray, and Peter as a young ingenue and Wade’s unlikely savior.

Jesus. Peter was going to have to start attending movie nights in the rec room. He was going into Hollywood withdrawal.

Ironically, it was Wade who ended up in the infirmary for busted knuckles, because as if the wall-throwing hadn’t been enough, Wade had also punched the wall.

“Think of the walls,” said Peter, mock-pityingly. “The poor walls, Wade! You’re gonna leave dents in them at this rate.”

Wade huffed, surfacing from his funk at last and smiling half-heartedly.

The nurse, a sticklike, elderly fellow who could’ve played a cadaver in a B-grade horror film, wasn’t as amused by Peter’s attempts at levity. He did, however, permit Peter to borrow the cotton swabs and the iodine and tend to Wade himself, given that there were no deadly instruments required for such a basic job, and given that there were three more patients in the infirmary who were demanding attention, griping from their beds after what must’ve been a helluva fistfight. Footfight. Appendage-fight? There were shoe-prints on that guy’s shirt. Ouch.

Peter tugged the green plastic curtain around the cot Wade was sitting on, until they were enclosed by it, because it just wasn’t kosher to bandage Wade where anybody could see him being vulnerable. Not only because Wade was Deadpool and he had a street cred to maintain, but because Peter had become inexplicably possessive of Wade’s vulnerability. Which was a peculiar thing to be possessive about, but… eh, Peter wasn’t as peculiar as Wade. 

In the bizarreness competition, Wade was still winning.

Which was why Wade went from his earlier pre-outburst restlessness to being absolutely motionless, as if Peter had immobilized him with a stun gun instead of just taking Wade’s hands.

“You all right?” Peter asked softly, because there was a subterranean tremor in Wade’s fingers, tangling with his own. “You’re a little shaky.”

“I’m. I’m fine. It’s just that—”

“Just what?”

“ _You_ may not be fine. After all this is over. If Corleone decides he isn’t cooperating with you, it’ll be because he thinks you’re working with the guards. If he thinks you’re working with the guards, so will everyone else. Once you have a reputation as a snitch, Peter, a reputation as a traitor, then that’ll be it for you. Even I won’t be able to protect you if literally every goddamn asshole in this joint is out for your life.”

Ah. So it wasn’t just Peter’s fear setting Wade off. It was Wade’s own fear. His fear of losing Peter. “Is that why you’ve been all… berserker-y?”

“Berserker-y?” Wade snickered. It was a hushed snicker, since they were in semi-public, but a snicker nevertheless.

Peter rolled his eyes. “You try forming actual words when your boyfriend is having a mental breakdown on your behalf. A mental breakdown that might result in him gutting somebody and then offering you their entrails.”

It wasn’t until Wade didn’t answer for six solid seconds that Peter realized what he’d said. Not “fake” boyfriend. Just boyfriend.

Wow. That had to be the worst Freudian slip in history. And what made it the worst was that Peter didn’t want to take it back. Or joke about it. Or pretend like he hadn’t said it.

So he just focused on swabbing iodine onto the torn skin of Wade’s knuckles, endeavoring to be as gentle as he could, and simultaneously endeavoring not to sink into the earth in humiliation.

Eventually, Wade spoke, and he sounded strangely wobbly when he said, “You can’t get a decent bouquet of flowers in a hellhole like this. Entrails will have to do.”

“A bouquet of entrails?” Peter joined in with a snicker of his own. “Smooth move, bro. I bet that’s real romantic.”

“Nothing like a steaming pile of intestines to remind you of how steamy your relationship is.”

Peter was sniggering so much, he couldn’t do the bandaging correctly. “Wade. Wade, shut up. I can’t put your bandaids on if I’m fucking pissing myself laughing.”

“I made you swear!” Wade crowed victoriously. “I made you honest-to-god swear!”

“I do swear.”

“Not the F-word! Not out loud! Somethin’ in you is still your auntie’s sweet li’l boy. Courteous. Civil. Polite.”

“I’m not some guilt-ridden Catholic schoolboy.”

“You’d look cute in the uniform of a Catholic schoolboy.”

“You wish.” Peter cradled Wade’s hands, huge as they were, too big for Peter to cup in his own. They just… rested on Peter’s open palms, scarred and massive and somehow pliant. These hands—hands that’d tossed a grown man aside like a rag-doll—had let Peter maneuver them, bandage them, heal them.

And Peter was grateful for that, for having the opportunity to remove Wade’s pain. This was his definition of “remove,” he supposed.

Peter’s thumb was brushing the fabric now covering Wade’s knuckles. It was a light, idle touch, lulling them both as it repeated itself, again and again, back and forth. It was paralyzing. Drugging. Soothing.

Wade was motionless again, although there was a different quality to it this time, a simmering, heated patience that was messing with Peter’s mind. It _must_ be messing with Peter’s mind, because when he bent to examine his thankfully not-too-shoddy bandaging, the only idea that popped into Peter’s head was that Wade’s hands were near enough to kiss.

All Peter had to do was lean in and run his lips over those knuckles, perhaps add a swipe of hot, wet tongue—just to see Wade shudder—

“Gentlemen,” said a bland voice, and Wade snatched his hands away from Peter like they’d been caught necking with their clothes off. The nurse was standing there, curtains drawn, observing them like they were uninteresting animals in a zoo exhibit, moments away from mating. Neither Wade nor Peter had noticed the curtains being drawn. How had they not noticed? “It’s been fifteen minutes. Sign out when you’re finished.” There was a meaningful pause. “And you should be finished.”

Peter sprang to his feet like a jack-in-the-box. “We’ll sign out! Uh. But I’ll have to sign out for Wade, on account of his knuckles. If that’s okay.”

“Go ahead,” said the nurse, and drifted off to check the drip feeding into the cannula of an unconscious inmate.

Wade rose up from the bed, looking totally poleaxed, like a piano had been dropped on him. A Peter-shaped piano.

“I’mma sign us out,” Peter said, jittery with nerves. “You, er. You can just. Chuck those bandage wrappers in the trashcan.”

“I sorta _am_ a trashcan,” Wade muttered bafflingly, and when Peter asked him why, Wade replied: “A human trashcan. Full of bad thoughts. Bad, bad thoughts.”

Peter didn’t dare to ask whether Wade’s bad thoughts were about Peter, and how Peter had been on the brink of kissing him today. Wade had to know that Peter had been on the brink of kissing him today.

Didn’t he?

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD I'M TRYNA GET THESE EEDJITS TO KISS BUT THEY KEEP COCK-BLOCKING ME
> 
> KISS-BLOCKING ME
> 
>  _BUT I PROMISE THEY WILL KISS IN THE NEXT CHAPTER_ , I KNOW I'VE SAID THAT BEFORE BUT I REALLY MEAN IT THIS TIME??
> 
> I'M SOBBING


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FINALLY! THEY DOTH KISS!
> 
> SERIOUSLY, I WAS STARTING TO FEEL LIKE SEBASTIAN THE CRAB FROM _THE LITTLE MERMAID_ , SINGING “KISS THE POOL” FOR SIX MONTHS STRAIGHT
> 
> OR GAY
> 
> LET’S FACE IT, NONE OF THOSE MONTHS WERE STRAIGHT
> 
> I WAS LIKE
> 
> BUT THEN I WAS LIKE
> 
> AND YOU GUYS WERE LIKE
> 
> AND NOW WE’RE LIKE
> 
> WHICH IS KINDA DISTURBING AND LOOKS LIKE A BIRD HUMPING A CRUSTACEAN BUT I PROMISE YOU THE ONLY HUMPING GOING ON HERE IS HUMAN/HUMAN

* * *

  


The notion of kissing Wade stayed with Peter throughout the remainder of the day, and the day after that, and the next. It was like a subtle, insidious inception. If folks could be said to incept themselves.

The problem was, acting on it would take courage. It’d take courage to admit it, and even more to act on it. Especially here, especially now. A kiss wasn’t just a kiss, in this place. It was the key to the freaking castle. It was as good as signing himself away—not just for kisses but for everything.

Was Peter ready for everything? No. Definitely not. Not yet.

Not that Wade would ever push for more than Peter was willing to give. Heck, Wade wouldn’t even push for what Peter _was_ willing to give.

And Peter was willing to give. He wasn’t sure how much or how fast or just, like, _how_ in general. He didn’t have any experience to guide him through standard courtship rituals, let alone courtship rituals with a serial killer nicknamed Deadpool. But what Peter was sure about was that he pictured them being further along than where they were. Further along what path, Peter didn’t know. Nor did he know where it led, only… only that it would be closer to Wade, and Peter yearned to be closer to Wade.

It was the opposite of the ignore-and-deny philosophy that Peter had (futilely) adopted so far. After all, even Peter’s talent for selective awareness was tested by nightly wet dreams about his cellmate _and_ prolonged proximity to said cellmate _and_ the knowledge that said cellmate was attracted to him in return.

It was also beginning to dawn on Peter that eight years was a long time, and if he was going to be stuck in here for those eight years, it would become nigh-unbearable to be celibate for his whole sentence. Particularly if he was stuck living with a man he had decidedly non-celibate thoughts about. It would become untenable. It was swiftly becoming untenable.

Yeah, Peter was a virgin, but he couldn’t conceive of spending the majority of his youth without any form of sex, trapped in a touchless, loveless void, distanced from the one person he’d come to care about. It wouldn’t have been sex with anybody but Wade—it would’ve been assault—but against the odds, Peter had developed a bond with Wade that was genuinely mutual. It would be a waste not to capitalize on it. Peter had always been an idealist, but prison was converting him into quite the utilitarian.

That aside, how could he even get Wade to participate? How could Peter set it up so that Wade wouldn’t backpedal at Mach 3 as soon as Peter so much as breathed in his direction? And how could Peter do that so it gave Wade the space to say no? Peter, of all people, appreciated the importance of consent. All of Peter’s efforts would be meaningless if Wade was coerced into kissing Peter, or emotionally blackmailed into doing so for fear of rejecting Peter.

Peter had to be serious, but not overly serious. And preferably in a context that was part-playful, that would give Wade an out.

Thankfully, Wade solved that quandary for Peter. By inviting Peter to join him for another round of poker.

Once they were seated on the cool concrete floor, cross-legged and scarcely a foot apart, the proverbial light went on in Peter’s brain.

Hallelujah! This was it. This was Peter’s chance.

“Don’t worry,” Wade said jokingly, waving his cards around as if they were notes of cash. “I won’t pressure you into strip poker.”

“I… I wouldn’t mind if it was kiss poker,” Peter mumbled, not daring to look up from his cards. He could feel Wade gaping at him. For approximately nine centuries.

“Kid,” Wade began, in that well-meaning tone of his, which automatically annoyed Peter into scowling at him. “You don’t understand what you’re—

“I do understand,” Peter interrupted. “I understand what’s going on between us. I’m not a child. Don’t you see what’s happening?”

“Stockholm Syndrome?” Wade hazarded sarcastically, and Peter snorted.

“Wade, you’re about as capable of Stockholming someone as a bunch of wet noodles are capable of being prison bars.”

“You just compared me to wet noodles.”

“Wade.”

“No, really. Why would you wanna kiss wet noodles?”

“’Cause they’re _my_ wet noodles,” Peter snapped, and promptly blushed.

“Oh,” Wade said faintly, after a while. “ _Oh_.”

“Yes, oh.” Peter had never been so violently embarrassed in his life. He decided to brazen through it. “So are you gonna play or what? Whoever loses kisses the other person. Deal?”

Wade stared and stared and stared at him.

“Unless you don’t want to,” Peter said tentatively.

“God, if you knew what I want—”

“I’d like to. I’d like to know.”

“You’re…” Wade shook his head. “You’re too innocent.”

“Maybe I’m tired of being innocent,” Peter said, meeting Wade’s eyes unwaveringly. “Maybe I’d like to lose my innocence. With someone I trust.”

“Trust?” Wade’s question was pained and filled with self-loathing. “You trust me?”

“I trust you.” So much for not being overly serious. Peter could hear his own seriousness, how undeniably certain he was. “Don’t tell me I shouldn’t.”

“When have I ever been able to tell you what to do?” Now, Wade sounded as fond as he was pained.

“Exactly. You don’t have to angst about taking advantage of me. Because you don’t control me.”

“Nobody can control you, Peter,” Wade said wryly. “You have no clue what a threat that makes you, do you?”

“A threat?”

“To guys like Pedro, who are all about control. To this shitty system. To my sanity.”

“Is that a compliment?”

“Comin’ from me? Yep.”

“Getting back to our card game…” Peter hesitated, then restated his terms. “Whoever loses kisses the other person. Proper kissing, not just a peck. Deal?”

“Deal,” Wade croaked. “I. I can’t believe this is hap—it can’t—is this even real? What if it’s a hallucination? Although I’ve never had nice hallucinations. What if you turn into a shark right before the kiss and bite off my face? My entire face, Petey. It’s ugly enough as it is.”

“Wade. Focus.”

Wade didn’t focus. He was more distracted than he’d ever been during their games, glancing frequently at Peter’s mouth, his expression switching from wonder to disbelief.

Peter did focus, though. He was determined to win, because then Wade would have to lead. He’d have to lead like he’d been itching to, but hadn’t, because of his morals. Morals that Peter had started to find weirdly attractive. He hadn’t even realized that anyone _could_ find morals attractive.

Perhaps it was foolish of Peter to dismantle the very morality that was responsible for his safety, for keeping the lion in its cage and away from the lamb—not that Peter was proud of being the proverbial lamb, but wasn’t there a passage in the bible about lions lying down with lambs?

Not that they’d be lying down. It was just kissing. Why was Peter’s imagination so overactive, anyway? His blush was approaching nuclear levels of radioactivity.

Disregarding the fact that his cheeks were as red as Italian tomatoes ripening under the noonday sun, Peter pulled a full house and singsonged: “Mind on my money, money on my mind.”

As Peter revealed his cards, equally smug and anxious, Wade laid his own cards down with unsteady fingers.

It wasn’t surprising that Peter had won.

“Well?” Peter asked, when Wade didn’t move. “Where’s my reward?”

At least thirty seconds passed in silence.

Peter’s heart was palpitating, rabbity and cowardly, because despite setting up this situation, he was still agonizingly helpless in it, still stupidly virginal, still the same wretched nerd who’d pictured his first kiss a million times but had never dared to do a thing about it.

He sat there, sweating and petrified, and Wade must’ve sensed it, because he didn’t jest, didn’t wink, didn’t so much as smirk. Instead, Wade got up, as silent as he had been before, and knelt on the floor in front of Peter.

He took Peter’s chin in his hand. In his broad, warm, gun-callused hand, the calluses grazing Peter’s throat. Peter’s pulse skipped, and Wade let those calluses trail along Peter’s jaw, cupping it.

There was a terrifying tenderness in how Wade was looking at him, terrifying because Peter had never been looked at like that before. Like a man—this man—would do anything for him, would touch him in every way he needed to be touched, and would do it as other men would worship.

Peter shut his eyes, because he couldn’t bear to witness it—how solemn Wade was, and how momentous this was for them both, how it would change them irrevocably.

The space between them was charged with tension, almost unbearably so, and for no reason that he could comprehend, Peter began shivering, even though his skin was flame-hot.

Wade’s breath grew nearer and nearer. Then there was a softness, the merest brush of lips against Peter’s, feather-light and careful and so unexpectedly sweet that something within Peter twisted in anguish.

This—this wasn’t—

This wasn’t what he’d been prepared for.

They’d barely begun, and already it was too much. Peter gasped at the second kiss, and again at the third, but the kisses weren’t becoming any more tangible, as if Wade couldn’t bring himself to do more than offer. As if Wade couldn’t bring himself to _take_.

“P-please,” Peter stuttered, his voice breaking.

Wade groaned. He bit Peter’s lower lip—gently, so gently—and licked over it, again and again, until Peter’s mouth parted of its own volition. Suddenly, the kiss was _wet_ , so slick and deep and startlingly filthy that Peter moaned loudly, then stiffened in shock at his moan.

Wade eased him back down with deliberate caresses, with palms that skated along the planes of Peter’s body, unraveling it as if it were a silken string. Peter was being gradually mastered, was being brought to heel, but rather than making Peter feel shameful, it lit a delicious fire in him, a fire stoked by how reverent Wade’s mastery of him was, so reverent that Peter’s submission to him didn’t feel like submission at all.

Peter melted into a languorous haze. Wade was still kissing him, as if he couldn’t stop, with more delicate, exquisite bites that didn’t even sting; they only made Peter’s lips swell and ache like they were bruised. It as as though Wade’s kisses were patiently stripping Peter, layer by layer, leaving him naked and trembling in their wake. It was as if he was being slowly eaten, a thorough devouring to which he gave himself up gladly, piece by piece.

When Wade finally withdrew, in reluctant, lingering degrees, Peter opened his eyes. His vision was blurry with unshed tears. He was throbbing all over, his blood pounding in him, gathering heavy and tingling between his legs.

He was—he was hard, and he reached instinctively for Wade, only for Wade to grasp his wrists and hold them away from him.

“Hey,” Wade said quietly. “Peter. Peter, no. We’re not ready for that.” He smiled crookedly, and it was such an _affectionate_ smile that it utterly disarmed Peter, that it halted Peter’s rebuttal in its tracks.

Because even in this, Wade was gentle. Even when he was reminding Peter of Peter’s own doubts, of Peter’s own fears. And as Peter regained his rationality in the dreamy aftermath of all that kissing, he found himself admitting that Wade had a point. They had to do this step by step. They had to do this right. It was worth doing right.

_They_ were worth doing right.

Pun intended.

“Okay,” said Peter, in little more than a rasp. But being abruptly deprived of Wade was lonely and unpleasantly cold, so Peter asked: “Could we… Could we just hug?”

Wade gestured ironically at their tented pants. “I don’t think that’s—”

Peter’s face fell.

“Ah, hell. C’mere.” Wade held out his arms, and Peter collapsed into them, relieved. They felt like home.

Which was how he and Wade ended up hugging with hard-ons. It was difficult, but they managed it with a minimal number of dick jokes, aside from the unavoidable ones that left them giggle-snorting into each other’s shoulders as they calmed down, their arousal fading away.

Eventually, they were just breathing together, two bodies pressed close and sharing warmth. Peter was reminded, strangely, of the warmth of his favorite sweater—the orange, misshapen monstrosity that Aunt May had knitted for him and that got him mocked in school, but kept him toasty on those chilly winter mornings when everyone else’s teeth were chattering, but his weren’t.

There was a smug superiority to that memory, a smugness that transferred, mystifyingly, into the present.

“You’re a very muscular sweater,” Peter said, and Wade chuckled.

“Petey-boy, sometimes you make no sense.”

 

* * *

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for all your wonderful reviews. You are the lights of my life.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please be warned that this chapter contains references to antisemitism and the depiction of an antisemite committing a hate crime. This and subsequent chapters will discuss the institutionalized racism and ethnocentrism that pervades the American prison system; please also be warned about that.

* * *

 

Peter had privately begun referring to time as either BK or AK, “Before Kiss” or “After Kiss.” Now, After Kiss, the world was different. Even how Wade looked at him was different—long, hungry glances that left Peter as breathless as Wade’s teasing, tantalizing kisses did. Sometimes, Wade’s glances had a smoldering, considering quality, as if he were contemplating what he could do with Peter, what he could do _to_ Peter, how he could debauch Peter in a thousand ways.

It was simultaneously empowering and scary—empowering because Peter was becoming acutely aware of the power he held as an object of desire—and scary because, well, Wade. Wade’s eyes had always had that electric, frightening intensity, and for Peter to have all that intensity focused on him was intimidating, to say the least. Every flick of Wade’s eyes up and down his body was like having a jolt of pure electricity shot through him, a mingled surge of adrenaline and lust. It reminded Peter that Wade was dangerous. Wade may be a muzzled beast, but he was a beast nonetheless. There were still fangs behind that muzzle.

It turned Peter on desperately.

But Wade never pushed. In fact, Wade was doing the opposite of pushing; he was perpetually retreating, drawing Peter in, putting the onus on Peter to initiate any type of contact whatsoever. It was frustrating, but when Peter envisioned what it would be like for Wade to succumb to his appetites and overwhelm Peter, lay all of Peter’s defenses to waste and just _take_ —

Damn. It was daunting. Arousing as all hell, but daunting.

So Peter bottled up his half-baked complaints and endured what had to be the slowest, mushiest, most torturous courtship on the planet. It _was_ torture, of this Peter was certain—a torture comprised of almost-there kisses, almost-there touches and the sort of prolonged, unbearable soul-gazing that was commonly categorized as “eye-fucking.” And yet, despite their self-imposed limitations, they shared what intimacies they could. Even if they were in public. Peter couldn’t resist tangling his fingers with Wade, palm-to-palm, as they ate in the mess hall. They were learning how to eat one-handed.

The other inmates cringed at his and Wade’s borderline disgusting sappiness; Peter often overheard the word “newlyweds” being bandied about in their wake. It was a word infused equally with envy and derision, and Peter found it hilarious that everyone assumed the “wedding night” had already been consummated, and that he and Wade were now in the midst of their honeymoon. Their gross, lovey-dovey honeymoon.

The truth was very far from that. There had never been a wedding night, and the pseudo-honeymoon currently underway bore more similarity to a Victorian-era exchange of sentimental billets-doux than it did to an orgiastic exploration of human sexuality. Not that Peter resented that. Except for when he had a hard-on. Then, he resented it  _plenty_.

All that resentment flew out the proverbial window when, on a Thursday afternoon (Peter kept track of the weekdays mostly to preserve his own sanity), Peter got the news he’d been waiting for.

Pedro’s lackey ambled by Peter’s and Wade’s bench in the mess hall, delivering a simple message: “The boss says yes. You’ll see him tomorrow, in the library. After lunch.”

Peter fought the urge to do a cartwheel. He’d probably bungle it, clumsy as he was. He settled for beaming at Wade.

Which was when it all went to shit. Predictably enough.

On the meandering path back to their cell, crossing corridor after corridor, they came upon a revolting scene—a man with a shaved, Swastika-tattooed scalp kicking an older prisoner in the guts, even though the pensioner was curled up, shielding himself from the blows. The bashing had clearly been going on for a while, because the elderly victim was visibly losing his strength, on the verge of just blacking out and letting himself be beaten into unconsciousness… or worse.

Peter recognized the victim as Smokes, the chain-smoking, friendly, Jewish octogenarian who was in for petty theft and who’d never committed a crime before. He wouldn’t be in a maximum security facility like this if there weren’t space shortages in local prisons. Talk about rotten luck. And as for today’s beatdown, Smokes must’ve been in the wrong place at the wrong time, a convenient target for the neo-Nazi brute currently pummeling him, likely for no other reason than Smokes being a Jew.

None of the onlookers were doing a damn thing. But Peter didn’t even have the opportunity to call the guards—there was a Wade-shaped streak hurtling toward the skinhead at the speed of light, resolving into an extremely loud crunch as Wade’s fist smashed right _into_ the skinhead’s nose and what seemed like halfway through his skull.

The skinhead dropped like a sack of potatoes. There was no fight, no retaliation; he was knocked out by that single punch. He lolled on the ground, bleeding copiously from the crater in the center of his face where his nose used to be. The blood pooled around his head in an expanding circle, almost reaching Wade’s shoes.

Peter just stood there, aghast. Wade looked up at him, the vicious snarl of satisfaction Wade had been sporting disappearing. He blinked down at his blood-slick red fist, as if surprised by the strands of tissue that clung to it.

Peter’s mind swam. Not only was what had occurred appallingly savage, but it had violated the terms of Wade’s incarceration. Wade had injured a prisoner gravely enough to hospitalize them, and would therefore be sent to solitary. Away from Peter.

Leaving Peter alone. Unprotected.

Wade’s widening eyes reflected Peter’s growing horror back at him.

“Call the infirmary,” Wade said to the people gathered, bending to wipe his fist clean on the skinhead’s jumpsuit. “Two inmates down.”

But before anybody could even move, voices from just around the corner spoke up—voices that belonged to a pair of goons from Pedro’s posse. Very familiar goons from Pedro’s posse, and hey, hadn’t they been shadowing Peter and Wade all along? From the mess hall, even?

One of Pedro’s goons picked at his teeth with a grimy fingernail. “What an unfortunate accident,” he tsked. “Don’t you reckon, amigo?”

The second goon frowned in confusion. “Yeah, bruh, dunno what happened. Mr. Wilson and Mr. Parker were being total gentlemen. This poor dude just randomly tripped and fell onto the floor while beating up this other poor dude. Who knew a floor could be that brutal?”

Everyone else in the corridor—four other inmates, with a fifth hiding behind a wall-mounted fire extinguisher—shifted uncomfortably.

“Right, boys?” The original goon flashed his newly-picked teeth.

There was vigorous nodding all around. Nobody wanted to defy Pedro’s minions; it would be tantamount to defying Pedro, and that would be a death sentence.

Peter and Wade had been saved.

The relief that overcame Peter was staggering. He tottered up to Wade and slumped against him, breathing high and fast. Wade immediately pulled him in, into the shelter of Wade’s tall, towering body. It was a body capable of ferocity surpassing an animal’s, but it was a sanctuary to Peter. It always would be.

“We oughta go,” Wade said into Peter’s ear, as a passerby was dispatched to alert the infirmary. “Quickly. Before the guards arrive.”

As they escaped, Pedro’s goons waved at them—and Peter, after some hesitation, waved back.

Relieved as he was, Peter was still struggling to cope with the fact that there were now men willing to bear false witness to guard Peter’s interests. As per the prison’s regulations, the reporting of any crime required signed testimonies from witnesses before the appropriate punishment could be doled out to the offenders, but if the accuser—in this case, the Nazi—had no witnesses to corroborate his statement, then it would be invalid. When he awoke in the infirmary, the skinhead could rail on and on about Wade flying at him like a wrathful avenging angel, but with no witnesses to back up his claims, they’d fall flat. And Wade would go free.

It made Peter feel victorious. And sick to his stomach. And victorious. Which was a complicated Gordian knot of emotions. Peter had achieved enough of a status to earn the alliance of a mafia don and therefore the cooperation of the general prison population, but at what cost? In doing so, he had officially joined the ranks of these bonafide criminals—not only by planning to hack the internet from the labs, but by aiding and abetting a violent assault, and participating in an unspoken conspiracy of silence to prevent the perpetrator of that assault from ever being punished.

Peter was a bad guy, now. He’d thought of himself as a good guy, once. He’d _been_ a good guy.

No longer. Today marked the demise of Peter Parker, everybody’s friendly neighborhood nerd, even as it marked the rise of Peter Parker, criminal mastermind.

Well. He wasn’t a mastermind yet. But he was getting there.

And he didn’t know how to feel about that.

 

* * *

 

When they got to their cell, Wade wouldn’t come near him. Even though Peter needed it. Instead, Wade paced restlessly, his hands clenching and unclenching, radiating a palpable fury. He was buzzing with an awful, wired energy that Peter didn’t have to be a shrink to identify as self-hatred.

“Wade,” Peter said. “Wade, look at me. We’re back home. You’re not in solitary. And I’m—”

“You’re vulnerable,” Wade spat. “Because of me. Because I couldn’t stop myself from snapping like a lunatic. Because I just wanted to _hurt_ the bastard, bring him down, fucking _break_ him into his component parts.”

“Smokes mightn’t have survived if you hadn’t intervened.” It was true; a bashing was only ever a fracture away from resulting in a fatality, especially if the victim was aged and frail. While Peter was disturbed by the severity of Wade’s actions, those very actions had saved an innocent man’s life. An innocent man like Uncle Ben. “What you did was right.”

“But not for the right reasons.”

“Wade. Don’t make it impossible for you to forgive yourself. You’re an expert at doing that. But I won’t let you.”

“Let me? I’m not… You couldn’t have stopped me.”

“Yes, I could’ve. If I’d even said the word ‘stop,’ you would’ve stopped. You’ve stopped before. In the yard, with the Irish jerk. Remember?”

“I…” Wade knuckled his eyes, as if he were about to cry, or as if he were about to gouge them out. He was shaking. “I’m sorry. I should’ve—why didn’t I _think_? No impulse control, that’s what my dad always—could’ve lost you, could’ve been locked away in solitary while every goddamn devil in this hellhole forced himself on you—”

Peter couldn’t tolerate it anymore. He went up to Wade and wrapped his arms around Wade’s shoulders—as far around Wade’s massive shoulders as they could go, anyhow—and basically hung from Wade’s giant frame like a tiny Christmas ornament. He swung there, his toes only just scraping the concrete as he buried his face in the warm hollow of Wade’s neck. “Hush,” he said, as softly as he could. “Wade, no. That’s just a nightmare scenario. None of that… None of that’s real. What’s real is you being here, with me. Safe. We’re safe.”

Wade sobbed. “It shouldn’t be me. It shouldn’t ever have been me.” In a heartbreaking whisper, Wade said: “I would’ve never been your choice. On the outside, you would’ve dated a nice girl. Had a fiancée to introduce to your aunt. If you weren’t in prison—”

“But we don’t live in what-ifs,” Peter interrupted him. “We live in the now.”

“Live in the now? What are you, a self-help book?”

“You require more help than I do.”

“You got that right. I’m the one with a psychiatric profile.”

“You’re the one with _me_. Okay? You’re the one I’ve chosen. The one I’m happy with.”

“Happy? With me?” Wade barked out a harsh laugh. “You’re nineteen. You don’t understand what happiness is.”

“And you do? Mister Misery And Woe?”

“Mister…” Wade rested his forehead against Peter’s. “Fine, you win. You bring even a sad ballsack like me happiness; you must have a Ph.D in joy.”

“That’s more like it. Award me with non-existent accolades.”

“Is that your way of telling me you have a praise kink?”

Peter planted an obnoxiously noisy smooch on Wade’s left cheekbone. “Yes.”

Wade’s shaking was subsiding, as if he’d been dipped in freezing water but Peter’s heat was seeping into him, easing him. “This has been the most convoluted kink negotiation ever.”

“Have lots of them, do you?”

“Kinks? Yeah. Negotiations? No.”

Peter quirked an eyebrow.

“Uh. Not because I don’t negotiate,” Wade said hurriedly. “More like, there hasn’t been anyone to negotiate with? Until you? Um.”

“Relax, Wade. I’m not accusing you of being a… non-negotiator.”

“You’re an awesome negotiator. You got Pedro to back you up. That’s amazing.”

Peter hummed. “How about we forget about negotiating for a while? I could go for some necking.”

And so they did. Wade had to be coaxed into it, guilt-ridden and rattled as he was, but soon they were kissing, with Wade clutching Peter tightly to him, like Peter was as insubstantial as mist and might vanish at any moment.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MY APOLOGIES FOR THE ANGST SINCE WADE'S INNATE VIOLENCE ISN'T THAT EASY TO REFORM :|
> 
> BUT HE'S TRYIN', GOD KNOWS HE'S TRYIN'
> 
> MORE FLUFF AND MORE FILTH IN THE NEXT CHAPTER I PROMISE <3


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOLOL Y'ALL GON' KILL ME B/C THERE'S NO FILTH _OR_ FLUFF IN THIS CHAPTER SINCE PLOT KIND OF TOOK OVER???
> 
> JUST BURY MY BODY SOMEWHERE NICE, THANKS :)

* * *

 

The prison library was deserted, aside from a bunch of Pedro’s guards standing around with books and pretending to read. One of them was holding _Gardening For Beginners_ upside-down.

It was both comedic and surreal, as so many things about jail were. Peter had never expected to find humor here, but there were bright veins of it amidst the darkness, little absurdities that caught the eye.

Like Tweedledee seriously browsing the self-help section while blocking the aisle that led to Pedro. If ever there was an underling who needed self-help, it was Tweedledee. And Tweedledum, Peter supposed, but Tweedledum was missing; he must be on an errand for Pedro.

“Heya,” Peter said cheerfully, and Tweedledee grunted at him before shifting aside.

“Mr. Parker,” Pedro said gravely, from where he sat behind the main desk. He ran the library, much like Peter ran the computer lab. “Please, have a seat. My felicitations on surviving yesterday’s… incident.”

“An incident I wouldn’t have survived if it weren’t for you.” Peter perched on the chair in front of Pedro’s desk. Uneasy as he was with conveying his gratitude to a mafia don, he did have manners. “Thank you.”

Pedro gave a thin, reptilian smile. “You have nothing to thank me for.”

Peter decided to cut to the chase.  “Why are your men following me?”

“They’re protecting my asset.”

“I’m not an _asset_.”

“No? Could’ve fooled me. You’re of benefit to me and my organization.” Slyly, Pedro observed: “I notice how you didn’t argue being _my_ asset.”

“That—” Peter spluttered. “That didn’t even strike me! Because I wasn’t—I didn’t even register that!”

“Of course, you will lose my protection if you prove to be useless to me.” Pedro flicked a speck of lint off his sleeve. Was that a metaphor? Then again, everything Pedro did was a metaphor. That was just how he was.

Peter steeled himself for what he had to say; he hadn’t liked Pedro’s language of ownership, and the implication that Peter was his tool to use, for Pedro’s own purposes. “I’m not just your personal asset. I’m not planning to restrict my activities to hacking the network for you; I plan to do so for any inmate that needs to get in touch with their families.”

There was a brief, chilly silence, in which Pedro’s gaze went cold, like ice frosting over the surface of a lake. A deep, treacherous lake.

“As you wish,” he said eventually. “I acknowledge your independence.”

Peter got the distinct impression that Pedro was only caving because he was confident he could manipulate Peter into submission. It was eerie, because Peter couldn’t predict how Pedro was going to accomplish that, but he could predict that it would be unpleasant.

“You’re sharp, aren’t you?” Pedro steepled his fingers in such a classic super-villain style that Peter was tempted to roll his eyes. “What a game of chess this is going to be. It’ll be my pleasure to bring you to heel.”

“Even if you do, I’ll just become your Achilles heel.”

“Are you implying that you can weaken me?”

Peter winced. He was meant to be negotiating with Pedro, not threatening him. Not that Peter had anything to threaten him with. On the contrary, Pedro was Peter’s sole source of protection that wasn’t Wade. Which was, perhaps, Pedro’s first step in manipulating Peter. Peter already owed him. And until Peter got more bigwigs on his side, just to even up the scales, he’d have to be unfailingly polite to Pedro. At this stage, Peter wasn’t Pedro’s match; he couldn’t talk as if he was. “No. That wasn’t… I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.”

“You’re forgiven,” Pedro said generously, his quicksilver eyes warming again. “You are a novice, after all. I should let you play white.”

Another allusion to chess. “I appreciate that,” Peter said ironically.

Pedro must’ve detected that irony, because his smile widened. “Your courage cannot be questioned, speaking to me as you are. Your wisdom, however…”

“You’re questioning my wisdom in challenging you, huh? Except I’m not challenging you.”

“No, you are merely refusing my patronage. I am not a man who is often refused, Mr. Parker.”

Peter coughed. “Yeah, well. I’m not… accustomed to being offered, uh… patronage.”

“Aren’t you? Associating yourself with Deadpool was a masterstroke, and your control of him is admirable.”

Peter falling in love with Wade hadn’t been a tactical decision, even if Peter’s posturing with Wade had been, at the beginning. But if thinking of Peter as Machiavellian predisposed Pedro to respecting him, Peter wasn’t going to contradict that. Not surrounded by Pedro’s thugs as he was. He had to successfully clinch this negotiation, get out of the library, and get back to Wade. Preferably in one piece. “Thanks.”

“If you could accept Deadpool’s far more intimate patronage, my professional patronage should be easier to accept.”

“But it’d shut out other convicts who have just as much of a right to communicate with their relatives.”

“Are you under the delusion that you can bring justice to this prison, Mr. Parker? That you can bring equality to an institution founded on inequality?”

“Are we having a philosophical discussion, now?”

“Your morality is quaint.”

“Your fondness for your grandmother is quaint,” Peter shot back, before he could check himself.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

Peter was dead. Deader than dead. So dead that they might as well conduct his funeral in this library. Because he wouldn’t be leaving it. Pedro was going to summon his hounds to maul Peter to shreds. Pedro was going to have him cremated in the kitchen’s largest oven. Pedro was—

Pedro was _grinning_ at him?

“Oh, if only you could meet her,” Pedro said. “She’d devour you whole.”

“Your grandma is a shark?” Peter said incredulously.

“Now that’s a compliment to sharks.” Pedro chortled. “Hm. Entertaining as it is to banter with you, Mr. Parker—”

“We’re bantering?”

“—we must conclude our business. I will give you three weeks to connect me with my famiglia and to pass the iPhone of which you spoke to my representative, who will approach you at my behest. I assume Dopinder Singh will smuggle the iPhone into the lab for you to hook it up to the network.”

“You… You know it’s Dopinder.” Peter had hoped Dopinder’s identity would remain a secret.

“How could I not? Singh is the officer assigned to the computer lab.” Pedro’s tone was patronizing. “I am informed of every officer’s role, major or minor, within this prison. When you mentioned that an officer would assist you, it wasn’t difficult to deduce which officer that was.”

So Pedro had corrupt jailors in his service, too. No wonder he did. He had millions of dollars to bribe them with. Peter was lucky to have the friendship of the non-corrupt Dopinder, who wasn’t interested in bribes but in honoring his debt to Wade. “I’ll have the phone for you.”

“Excellent.”

“Will your guards continue, erm—” _stalking me?_ “Following me?”

“Not only that, but you’ll find them stationed at the entrance of your cell prior to your exit from it. I suggest you wait for them to arrive before leaving, whether it is for mealtimes or for bathing.”

Why did it feel like this was more about Pedro keeping track of Peter’s movements than it was about Pedro protecting him? Peter couldn’t argue, though, particularly when he and Wade gained from Pedro’s supervision. “Okay,” he said reluctantly.

“I wouldn’t be so intrusive, but your caretaker is obviously incompetent.” 

“My… You mean Wade?”

Pedro appeared impressed that Peter dared to address the infamous Deadpool by name. Gosh, it was like Wade was Voldemort or something. He Who Must Not Be Named. “Indeed, I did mean Deadpool. But,” Pedro added warningly, “I wash my hands of him if he makes any further unforced errors, such as going on a crusade against the Nazis. I sympathize with his anti-Nazi sentiments, but I have no resources to spare to protect the two of you from skinheads seeking vengeance en-masse.”

“En… En-masse?” Peter said faintly.

Pedro considered Peter, then sighed, as if it irked him to have to give genuine advice to a newbie like Peter, but Peter was so hapless that Pedro had to do it even if it was annoying. “Have you ever bothered reflecting on the signals you send? Here, every action of yours sends a signal. In defending that Jewish man, isolated and without power as he was, you and Deadpool have sent a signal to the rest of the prison—a signal that you will save victims of injustice regardless of their lack of power or their inability to repay you.”

“How could somebody like Smokes repay us?”

“Precisely. He couldn’t. But you saved him anyway. Charming as your altruism is, it will win you enemies in high places—because people in high places are only in those places based on an economy of power, of favors exchanged, of deals made. You made no deals when you took down a skinhead and rescued an old man. You bribed no-one. You profited from no-one. You acted in a manner that was unforeseeable. You acted in a manner that endangered the system.”

Holy crap. So in the prison’s Alignment Chart, Peter and Wade had become Chaotic Good? “And that’s… that’s bad?”

“Not only will the skinheads bear a grudge against you, but so will those who profit from the system as it stands.”

Peter gulped. “Isn’t that also you?”

“Clever lad,” Pedro said approvingly. “Yes. That is also me.”

“But you’re not going after me because I can offer you a connection to your family.”

“Cleverer and cleverer.”

“What’s to say I won’t get them all to lay off me by offering the same to them?”

“But will you offer the same to them?”

“What?”

“Think about it. Will you offer the same to the skinheads? The pedophiles? The rapists? Will you offer _everyone_ equal access to your just and noble kingdom of Camelot? Will everyone be accepted at your Round Table, in spite of their crimes?”

Peter stared. He honestly hadn’t pondered that. He hadn’t gotten beyond the technicalities of hacking the network. At most, he’d harbored a vague notion of helping everybody who missed their folks, but it hadn’t occurred to him that not everybody who missed their folks might be deserving of his help. This was a jail, for god’s sake. How could Peter not have discerned that?

“Methinks Deadpool would not be best pleased with that, given his hatred of Nazis and sexual assaulters. And methinks you, darling boy that you are, would not favor aiding them either.” Pedro spread his hands. “So what will it be, Mr. Parker? Is your dream of equality sustainable? Or is affiliating yourself with a more acceptable party—like myself—better for all involved?”

“You’re a bastard,” Peter marveled. So this was the next step in Pedro’s manipulation of him. “A magnificent bastard, but still.”

Pedro laughed. “And you’re a promising novitiate. I’d rather you lived long enough to become a promising ally.”

“And that’s up to you, is it? How long I live?”

“It’s up to your Daddy. If he can’t keep himself out of trouble, I can’t do it for him.”

“That wasn’t what I was asking, and you know it.”

Pedro regarded him serenely. “You ought to drop by for a more literal game of chess, someday. It’ll be fun.”

“I’m not into your concept of fun.”

“You weren’t into Deadpool’s concept of fun initially, I suspect. And now look at you.”

“Please don’t,” Peter muttered, and got up. “Goodbye, Mr. Corleone.”

“Goodbye,” said Pedro, and resumed flipping through the library catalog full of numbers as if it were a mafia ledger in disguise.

Who knew? Maybe it was.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'VE ALREADY WRITTEN THE NEXT CHAPTER WHICH IS THE FIRST TRULY SMUTTY CHAPTER SO FAR, AS IN IT'S PRETTY MUCH ALL SMUT? I HOPE THAT'LL MAKE UP FOR THE LACK OF WADE IN THIS PART? BTW THE SMUT WILL BE UP TOMORROW LOL I EXIST TO TORMENT YOU ~~AND MYSELF FML~~


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ORGASMS AT LAST
> 
> NOT THAT OLD LADIES MAKE ME THINK OF ORGASMS

* * *

 

Wade was hovering just beyond the library door, like an anxious husband hovering outside a delivery room. As soon as Peter emerged, he blurted: “How’d it go?”

“No clue.” Peter started down the hallway with Wade in tow, pretending that they weren’t being shadowed at a discreet distance by Tweedledum’s shorter cousin. The distance was, thankfully, out of earshot. “I think he likes me? But he won’t have any scruples about killing me if he has to.”

Wade snarled. “I’ll end him before he even gets to you.”

“Chill, buddy. He hinted at playing chess with me in the future, which indicates I have a future. The guy can’t say a damn word that isn’t laden with multiple meanings. I’ve been reading between the lines so much I’ve gone cross-eyed.”

“But he did say the deal’s still on.”

“He did!” Peter gloated.

Wade high-fived him.

When they got back to their cell and were freed from their Pedro-mandated chaperone, Peter immediately trudged to his bunk for a lie-down. He was as exhausted as if he’d just walked a tightrope. His pulse was still thready after that near-death experience. Because it had been a near-death experience, despite Pedro’s flawless etiquette. Peter had felt it in his gut.

But before Peter could climb up to his bunk, Wade said: “Hey, Pixie.”

Peter turned slowly. “What did you call me?”

“Well, you’re magical. And tiny.” Wade shrugged. “Besides, the prisoners expect me to give you a pet-name. You’re my, er—”

“Your bitch?” Peter said icily.

“Nah,” said Wade, in a small, terrified voice. “Pretty sure _I’m_ your bitch.”

Peter broke character, erupting into giggles. “Wade. Wade, why d’you get so alarmed when I do that?”

“Because it’s too convincing,” Wade huffed. “And you’re… You make a formidable queen bee.”

“I dunno whether to be more baffled by you comparing me to female royalty or by you comparing me to an arthropod.” Peter contemplated the possibilities. “But if I am an arthropod, I’m a spider. Hacking into the web, get it?”

“Is that what I should call you, then? Spider-Baby?”

“Spider- _Man_.”

“That’s, like, a comic book character’s name. It’s corny as heck.”

“Deadpool’s even cornier.”

“Point.”

Peter leaned against the ladder leading up to his bunk. Yeah, he needed a lie-down, but wouldn’t a lie-down with Wade be more enjoyable? “Um, can we… Can we share your bunk?”

“Peter…” Wade fidgeted. “It’s not a great idea for us to share a bed.”

“We won’t be sharing it all night. This is just… lying down. At midday. With our uniforms on. No hanky-panky.”

Wade snorted skeptically. “That’s a recipe for disaster.”

“A disaster in our pants?” Peter joked, and Wade wavered.

“You’re too cute to resist,” Wade grumbled. He got into the bunk after Peter did, and settled facing him. “There. Happy?”

“Blissful.” And Peter was. This was so nostalgic, like schoolboys having a sleepover; there was a comfort to it, an innocence. Peter nuzzled into Wade’s pillow, inhaling Wade’s scent. Wade himself emanated that scent, mingled with a warmth that was irresistible. Peter nestled against him, and after a lull in which Wade likely debated whether or not this counted as “hanky-panky,” Wade began stroking his hair. It was perfect.

Wade cleared his throat, awkwardly petting Peter’s head. “Pedro didn’t—do any—that is—”

“Nope.” Peter reached down to squeeze Wade’s hands in reassurance. “He didn’t harass me like that. He just made me doubt my morals. Which, uh, I’m concerned he’ll do each time I interact with him? Pedro’s like the stereotypical devil on your shoulder. All urbane and sophisticated and persuasive.”

“And what was he trying to persuade you to do?”

“Hack for him exclusively. Which, a hacker’s a useful weapon to have, I guess? And if all the bosses in the prison are engaged in a constant arms race, then it makes sense that Pedro would wanna secure exclusive rights to the latest weapon in his arsenal. He wouldn’t like it if his rivals had it in their arsenals, too. He didn’t convert me, though.”

“Why not?”

Peter shifted on the lumpy pillow. “’Cause I’m too freaking smart to buy into his bullshit. He told me that if I won’t hack for everyone—like Nazis and child abusers—then I’m gonna have enemies anyway. Why not let him shelter me from them?” Peter scoffed. “But I’m like… If I become useful to every other individual and group, then I’ll still have more allies than enemies. The math is still in my favor. Not completely in my favor, but enough that I should have the advantage over the few truly evil assholes I _won’t_ hack for. If they go against me, they’ll piss off every dude in this joint that does get to say hi to his kids because of me.”

Wade was silent for a while. “Sometimes you frighten me, Petey. I bet that’s why Pedro’s into playing chess with you. You could checkmate him. And he likes that.”

“He can shove his chessboard up his—” Peter halted mid-sentence to calm himself down. “If it weren’t for all the poker lessons you gave me, I would’ve flunked out today.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.”

“Yep. I would’ve. Remember when we met? You said I couldn’t bluff my way out of a paper bag.”

“Now you can bluff your way out of a bank vault.”

“On Mount Everest.”

“In a fort.”

Peter sniggered. “See, that? The credit for that goes to you.”

“I’m… not proud of teaching you that.”

“You should be. It’s a survival skill. If you hadn’t taught it to me, I wouldn’t have survived.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit.”

“You don’t give _yourself_ enough credit,” Peter retorted.

“No, it’s you who—”

“No, it’s you.”

“No, it’s…”

Peter put a finger on Wade’s lips to shut him up.

Wade shut up.

He did that a lot, Peter realized. Normally, Wade wouldn’t shut up at gunpoint—heck, he’d only chatter more—but Peter’s touch was all it took to knock him out. Wade’s eyes were always wide and stunned when Peter touched him, as though Wade couldn’t bring himself to believe that Peter would touch him like that. That _anyone_ would touch him like that, with care and tenderness.

So Peter kept touching him. He let his fingertips drift over Wade’s features, craggy and pitted as they were, with knots of scar tissue thickening the flesh unevenly. It wasn’t a beautiful face. Yet it was dear to Peter, mobile and expressive and vibrant as it was, more _alive_ than anybody else’s. Now, filled with wonderment at Peter’s nearness, it was even dearer.

“Do the scars still hurt?” Peter murmured, caressing the twisted ruin of Wade’s mouth. He recalled what it had been like to kiss, and his breath hitched.

“No,” Wade said, sounding drugged, his lips moving against Peter’s palm. He kissed it, and it was an absent gesture, Wade’s eyes half-shut as Peter’s fingers slid along his jaw, feather-light. “No, they never… It’s only when you touch them that they… hurt. But it isn’t a physical pain,” Wade clarified, before Peter could withdraw. Wade smiled, and it was a strange, rueful smile, stretching his scars out of true. “It’s the pain of feeling too much.”

Peter had to kiss Wade after that. He just had to, because if his kisses could draw away that pain—lift it, lighten it—then he’d do whatever he could.

When he brushed his lips against Wade’s, Wade shivered. Their mouths parted against each other, a slow, slick deepening that grew hotter and sweeter as the minutes passed. They scarcely ever paused for air; Peter’s lungs burned from a lack of oxygen, but he ignored them. There was a quiet fire building within him, making him flush with heat, the friction of his clothing against his skin becoming unbearable. He squirmed, and every needy, cut-off whimper he uttered inspired a corresponding groan from Wade.

Peter grabbed Wade’s shirt, rolling onto his back and tugging Wade on top of him. Wade’s weight above him pressed their groins together and Peter bucked, helpless not to. God, it was so good, so _right_ , and Peter was so close—

Peter moaned in frustration when Wade stopped him, seizing Peter’s wrists and pinning them to the bed.

“No.” Wade’s voice was like bedrock, solid and uncompromising. It was also rough with want, and Peter shuddered to hear it. “Peter. You said we wouldn’t.”

“Oh, c’mon.” Peter tried dislodging Wade’s grip and failed. Perversely, it only drove Peter wilder, that Wade could not be budged, that Wade was so strong he could overwhelm Peter whenever he wished. “It’s just kissing.”

“If you keep—” Wade swore as Peter bucked again “—fuck, _doing_ that, it won’t just be kissing anymore. It’ll be much more than that.”

Butterflies fluttered nervously in Peter’s stomach. “Just let me c-come.” He blushed at having to beg for it, at having to say it. He’d never said it before, not out loud and not like this, with a plea that trembled as it left him. “Please. We don’t have to take our clothes off. It doesn’t have to be sex—”

“It’ll be sex. Trust me, Peter. It’ll still be sex, and it’ll still feel like sex, and it’ll still mess you up on the inside like sex. If you aren’t ready for it—”

“I’ve _been_ ready! And you know I trust you!”

Wade exhaled lengthily. “Okay,” he said at last, after Peter had been stewing in his own hormones for approximately fifteen million years. “But our shirts and our trousers stay on, and our hands don’t stray. Deal?”

“Deal,” Peter replied. He was so hard it ached. And so was Wade; Peter could see it, tenting Wade’s pants like a goddamn Erector Set. How Wade could have such self-discipline with a boner like that was beyond Peter. Maybe it was because Wade was in his thirties and wasn’t a virgin; all Peter’s inexperienced brain could do was replay Wade saying ‘sex’ on repeat.

Peter had permission, now. Permission to grind them together, and that was what he did, bringing his knees up to cradle Wade, seeking out Wade’s mouth for more kisses. And Wade gave them to him—stinging, hungry bites that wandered down the column of Peter’s neck—bites that were almost angry, almost feral.

Almost.

It wasn’t enough. Wade still held himself above Peter, and his tightening, increasingly bruising grasp on Peter’s wrists was the only reaction he had to Peter crushing their erections together. It was as if Wade was still controlling his lust, letting Peter rut against him but staying unmoving himself, and it made Peter so desperate that he bit at Wade’s lips vengefully, demandingly.

Soon there was a litany of “please, please, please” escaping Peter in hot, breathless puffs, and that was what finally got to Wade, what finally made Wade snap and grind _back_ , rocking against Peter so powerfully that the bunk creaked with the force of it.

Peter choked on a scream. His limbs spasmed, his legs twining around Wade’s waist as his body surged _up_ , meeting every drive of Wade’s hips with one of his own. His ankles locked instinctively behind Wade’s back, giving Peter the leverage to thrust upward again and again.

Damp cotton weave was all that there was between them, thin layers of poor, prison-quality material ground to nigh-transparency. The shape of Wade’s cock was tangible through it, huge and hard and scary, and _yes_ , it was leaking, although Peter couldn’t tell which of them was leaking more, because the fabric between them was so sticky.

It got even stickier when Peter’s dick spurted pre-come. “More, more, m-more,” he babbled, and Wade growled.

The growl set Peter off, because that was how Wade growled when he was about to _break_ someone.

And Peter… Peter was the only person here to be broken.

Peter came, and it slammed into him like a tidal wave, dragging him under, gasping and drowning. He spilled in his pants, soaking them in a wet flood that Wade must’ve been able to feel, because Wade jolted like he’d been electrocuted.

“Fuck,” Wade cursed. “Fuck, fuck, _fuck_.”

Before Peter could even finish coming, Wade hauled himself up and off the bunk, staggering to the toilet concealed behind a metal panel in their cell. It was the only partition the cell had, its sole pretense at privacy.

Peter curled up on the mattress, panting. Aftershocks still raced through him as he heard Wade jerking off—sloppy, brutally fast and obscenely audible. Peter was too spent for his prick to do more than twitch in response.

The taps squeaked on and off, and then Wade returned, red-faced and penitent and bearing a towel.

“You, um.” Wade sat beside Peter on the bed, but he sat right on the edge, as though he would leap off at the slightest evidence of disapproval from Peter, or if Peter so much as said ‘boo.’ Wade’s expression was a hilarious mixture of worry and afterglow. “Are you… Do you…”

“I’m fine, except for how what you did was totally unfair.”

Wade paled.

“Not the sex part,” Peter said quickly. Shit. “The not-getting-to-see-you-come part.”

Wade went back to being red. He was switching colors like the neon bulbs in a strip-club sign. “That was—it wouldn’t’ve been—”

“Why don’t you gimme the hug you owe me for leaving me alone?”

“I…” Wade wrung the towel. “Shouldn’t we… clean you up, first?”

Peter smirked. And hooked his thumbs into the elastic of his pants. “You offering?”

“No! I mean, you can clean up and I can join you, after? For the hugging. Just the hugging.” Wade deposited the towel on the bunk like a pet dog gingerly depositing a gift on the bed of its owner, and turned to stare fixedly at the door.

It was as if Wade was re-establishing their boundaries, as if he was reassuring Peter that Wade still respected him, that Wade wasn’t going to attack him at every opportunity now that they’d had sex.

Which was adorable, all this respectful bashfulness after they’d humped like rabbits—weirdly adorable, yeah, but what about them wasn’t weird? Peter’s post-coital attitude wasn’t any less bizarre, casual as it was. He’d presumed there would be some profound change in their relationship after having sex, but it wasn’t all that different. Wade was still Wade, and Peter was still Peter. They were just closer, that was all.

It was proof that Wade had been right all along, that waiting until they’d been ready had ensured that sex wouldn’t disrupt their bond, but would only enhance it. Peter was as comfortable with Wade as he’d ever been. Perhaps even more so.

Peter deliberately supplied all the breathy, pornographic sound effects he could get away with while cleaning himself up, and was rewarded by the sight of Wade going red all the way to his ears. 

Score.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so very, very much for your reviews! They're the reason I'm so dedicated to writing this story! I may not have the time to reply to every comment, but boy howdy do I cherish each review and hold it close to my heaving bosom. <3


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for the delay in updating! I will endeavor to update more frequently, whenever time permits.
> 
> This chapter is plot-focused, but the next chapter will have more Spideypool smut. So you have that to look forward to!
> 
> Oh, and I loved the character of Ned from the new Spider-Man movie so much that I’m writing him into the story. He isn’t showing up in person quite yet, but he will be.
> 
> Have fun reading!

* * *

 

It was Visitation Day. Peter was escorted to the visiting room by a guard and, more subtly, by Pedro’s appointed minion. Today, it was Tweedledee who lurked behind every corner that Peter turned. The guard, if he noticed, didn’t let on. Perhaps he—along with half the employees in this prison—was also in Pedro’s pay.

The visiting room was crowded, as always. The inmates sat on rickety stools opposite their visitors, mostly women and children, who were separated from them by transparent, fingerprint-smudged dividers. Men whose faces usually appeared carved from stone were showing emotions they rarely did, their facades cracking under the weight of simple affection as they never did under the weight of force. Those emotions humanized them, disarmed them. Sorrow. Longing. And, most transforming of all, joy.

This was why it was so important to Peter that he succeed in his hacking—not for profit or politics or ambition, but for _this_. For restoring some humanity to those who otherwise had few reasons to retain it. Despair could drive men to more violence than any material temptation. If Peter could give them faith—if he could give him more moments like these, where they could see the smiles of their kids—then he might fundamentally reform the system itself.

Or he might just be found dead in a corridor, somewhere, with Pedro’s metaphorical knife sticking out of his back.

Peter’s internal monologue screeched to a halt when he saw who his visitor was.

It wasn’t Aunt May.

Spotting Gwen on the other side of his designated plastic screen was a surprise, and not an entirely pleasant one. Peter had yearned to see Gwen, of course he had, but he’d hoped, illogically, that she wouldn’t see _him_. Not like this. He was clad in a prison uniform, and that was bad enough, but that wasn’t the most jarring change in him. He knew that his eyes had hardened, that they had a harshness and an oldness they didn’t have before.

He didn’t want Gwen to see that.

But she did, and she flinched, like Peter had struck her.

Peter sat down. Looked at her. And let her look at him.

It was as if years had passed since they’d last met. Gwen was somehow sunlit even in this grim, dismal environment—there was a light within her and around her, a light that had once drawn Peter in but now was blindingly bright. It was just so foreign to this place, so unsuited to it, to the darkness within which Peter now dwelled. Or perhaps it was within Peter that the darkness dwelled. Looking at Gwen was like looking at the sun. It hurt.

What must he look like, to her? Was he as dark as a bruise? As a shadow? He was no longer a resident of the above-ground paradise she hailed from. He was a resident of the sewers.

There was no sunlight, here. There were no gardens. No neatly-mowed lawns.

Peter realized that in the past many months, he hadn’t encountered a single blade of grass. It was an incongruous realization, given the context, and it jarred him to the core.

Much as he was jarring Gwen.

“Peter,” Gwen began, and seemingly ran out of words. Her hands were shaking. Peter did her the mercy of pretending they weren’t and focused on her cheerful yellow dress, which had small brown flowers on it. It was the dress Gwen had worn to Peter’s eighteenth birthday party. He wondered if that was why she’d worn it. To honor the memory of the friendship they’d had.

Still had?

“Gwen.” Peter addressed her as gently as he could. “Don’t worry. I’m faring… far better than I expected, honestly. So don’t act like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’m—I didn’t—” Gwen cut herself off. “I’m sorry I didn’t visit you for so long.”

“Gwen, it’s fine.”

“No. No, it’s not. And I owe you an explanation.” Gwen visibly composed herself. “I just… I persuaded myself that I shouldn’t waste your visits when you were only permitted a visitor per week. Aunt May had more of a right to visit you, didn’t she? Didn’t you need her more than you needed me?”

“Gwen…”

“But those were all excuses.” Gwen squared her shoulders and sat up, her customary confidence returning to her, her courage. Peter had always envied her that courage. “The truth was, I felt guilty,” Gwen admitted. “I _was_ guilty.”

“Not in a court of law,” Peter joked, and Gwen gawked at him.

“Peter!”

“What, I can’t joke about my own incarceration?” Peter shrugged. “And anyway, how are you even remotely guilty for me winding up in prison? Last time I checked, you’re not Norman Osborn. Unless he’s discovered how to shapeshift. Which, er, I hope he hasn’t.”

“Peter. Be serious.”

“I am serious.” It was just that Wade was rubbing off on him. Literally and figuratively. “If Osborn can shapeshift, we’re all screwed. Have we done DNA tests on the president, lately? What if he isn’t who he says he is?”

“ _Peter_. I’m trying to make a confession.”

“I ain’t no priest and this ain’t no confessional, but go ahead.” Was it just Peter, or were his mannerisms beginning to resemble Wade’s?

Gwen glowered at him. Apparently, she didn’t appreciate Peter’s cavalier attitude. “The reason I felt guilty was because I wasn’t doing a thing to help you.” She leaned forward, her features set in the kind of determination that generally boded ill for anybody on the receiving end of it. “Now, I am.”

“You’re what?”

“Helping you.”

Peter’s stomach plummeted. “No.” He shook his head vigorously. “Gwen, no. Whatever it is you’re planning—”

“I’m still an intern at Oscorp. I’m your spy on the inside. And I’m going to prove your innocence, Peter. Just you wait.”

“You—you don’t have to do that. You _shouldn’t_ have to do that. You’ve got a life to live, Gwen.”

“And you don’t?” Gwen argued. God, when she was pissed off, she was impossible to beat. “You have a life to live, too, Peter. A life that Norman stole from you. I won’t rest until you get it back.”

“Maybe…” Peter thought of Wade’s kisses, their softness, their sweetness. “Maybe I have more of a life in here than you think I do.”

“You can’t mean that.” Gwen peered at him, uncertainty creeping into her resolve. “Can you? What are you saying, Peter? How can you tolerate staying in prison? You could be going to college.”

“Technically, I could still be going to college. Via correspondence courses. I’ve been considering it.”

“And you’re willing to spend eight years completing correspondence courses? Eight _years_?” Gwen paled. “Given what I—what I’ve read of prisons—”

“I’m not being raped,” Peter stated flatly.

“For how long?” Gwen insisted. “How long can you go before you’re subjected to some form of brutality, be it sexual or not? How can I, as your friend, sit back and watch it happen?”

“Gwen—”

“You’d do the same for me,” Gwen said stubbornly.

Crap. She was right. Peter couldn’t even contradict her, because then he’d be lying, and she’d be just as aware of it as him. “And what are you plotting to do? You hoodwinking Norman is like a mouse sneaking under the radar of an owl. It won’t happen.”

“It’ll happen. Trust me, it’ll happen.” Gwen’s eyes gleamed with tenacity. A frankly frightening amount of tenacity. “I’ve begun to understand why Norman framed you for intellectual property theft. He did it to justify why so many of his crucial files went missing.”

“Lemme guess,” Peter drawled. “He vanished them away himself?”

“Bingo.” Gwen made finger-guns at him. _Finger-guns_. Peter chuckled. “They were files Norman preferred to conceal, even if, legally, he was required to disclose all files created for a government program _to_ the government.”

“The government?” Peter was confused. “Oscorp doesn’t do government contracts.”

“Except that it has been doing them. Secretly. I only found out after snooping around in the PR department. There’s a press release in the works about how Oscorp is proud to announce a groundbreaking new venture with the federal government, a venture that it’s been covertly working on for about four years. They’ve kept it on the down-low for ‘security purposes,’ or at least that’s what their official statement is. It’ll be all over the newspapers, soon—Norman in a convenient photo-op with the chief of the CIA, shaking hands with America’s leaders and branding himself a visionary. A visionary?” Gwen stuck out her tongue. “Blegh.”

“Norman is a visionary, though. He envisioned me in jail, and here I am, just as he envisioned.”

“That isn’t all he envisioned. This program that Oscorp’s about to launch with the government? It’s named Project Rebirth.”

“Wow,” Peter said. “That doesn’t sound suspicious at all. Or like it’s from an X-Men movie.”

“I know, right?” Gwen rolled her eyes. “It’s such a typical, only-a-supervillain-could-come-up-with-it name.”

“Didn’t Wolverine get subjected to a ‘project’ like that?”

For about two minutes, all Peter and Gwen did was snigger. But then, glancing at the clock, Gwen sobered up and resumed her story. “It’s troubling, Peter. Very troubling. Troubling for America and for the entire planet. Because Oscorp is collaborating with the military to build America an invincible army. An army that cannot die. An _undead_ army.”

“A what, now?” Peter boggled. “Have I died and woken up in a comic book?”

“No, Peter, I’m afraid you haven’t. And that isn’t even the worst of it.” Gwen passed a hand over her eyes, as if she couldn’t bear what she was about to say. “The government can’t publicly exploit soldiers as guinea pigs, and upstanding citizens are out of the question. So can you guess who it is that Norman’s going to be experimenting on, to make them impervious to death?”

It all clicked in Peter’s brain. “Inmates. Prison inmates.”

“You got it. Specifically, inmates on death row or with life sentences, who will walk free if they agree to participate in the program.”

“ _If_ they can walk free at all.”

“Yes. Chances are, they won’t survive the experiments.” Gwen sighed. “But it’s deemed acceptable to kill them if they volunteer. If they themselves sign off on their lives.”

“Yikes. Talk about the prenup from hell.”

“The special hell, even.” Gwen grimaced in disgust. “My hunch is that the files Norman vanished away—that he framed you for stealing—are files regarding Project Rebirth that he _didn’t_ intend to disclose to the government.”

The implications began to dawn on Peter. “Which indicates he’s doing something that the government won’t approve of.” He marveled at Gwen’s deduction. “Gwen, you’re a genius.”

“Thanks!” Gwen beamed. “So are you.”

“Yeah, real genius-like of me, to get caught for a crime I didn’t even commit and had no clue about.”

“That was why Norman chose you as his scapegoat. He selected you because you were low enough on the food-chain for him to eliminate you without consequences. But he was wrong. He didn’t count on you having allies.”

“You mean nutjobs. Self-sacrificing nutjobs.” Peter frowned. “Wait, allies _plural_? Who else is involved in your harebrained conspiracy?”

“You just called me a genius,” Gwen pointed out. “My conspiracies can’t be that harebrained, can they?”

“Gwen. Who. Else.”

“Ned.” Gwen fidgeted with her dress. “He’s gotten into that internship he was aiming for.”

“The [CIA internship](https://www.cia.gov/careers/student-opportunities/undergraduate-students.html)?” The pieces of Gwen’s puzzle were slotting together a tad too quickly for Peter’s peace of mind. It couldn’t be that easy. It just couldn’t. “Shit. I bet he thinks that gives him the perfect opportunity to hack into Project Rebirth for me, to sniff out what Norman Osborn’s hiding.”

“That was Ned’s precise phrase for it. With the sniffing. So you still have that pseudo-telepathic connection with him? Nice.”

Peter ignored her nonsense. “He can’t do that, Gwen! _You_ can’t do that! It’s illegal!”

“What is moral and what is legal doesn’t always intersect.”

“Explain that to the cops. God damn it,” Peter muttered. “Why am I surrounded by vigilantes?”

Gwen regarded him curiously. “Who else is a vigilante?”

“My kooky cellmate.” Peter massaged his forehead; he was acquiring a headache. “I can’t believe it. You roped Ned into this?”

“Ned isn’t getting ‘roped into’ anything. He’s your friend, too, jackass. We came up with this together.”

“Ned might be a slicker hacker than me, but going up against the government? Come off it, Gwen. If he gets caught, that’s an actual crime. With actual jail-time. And you’ll be an accessory to it, if Norman doesn’t charge you with industrial espionage, first. Listen, I love you guys, but if you get arrested because of me then I will formally sever our friendship. What’s worse than one of us in jail, Gwen? _All of us in jail_. Don’t be a twit. Kindly inform Ned that I don’t need an Edward Snowden in my camp. If he doesn’t agree, he should visit me and I’ll convince him personally.”

“But we’re making progress!” Gwen objected. “We could exonerate you!”

“Gwen. It’s dangerous. Norman put me in jail. He could do the same to you. To the both of you. Please, don’t do this. Leave Oscorp be and just—just don’t.”

“When have I ever let you—or any man, for that matter—tell me what to do?”

Peter gazed at her in defeat. As a final attempt at rationality, he asked, “What about Harry?”

“ _Fuck_ Harry.”

Peter’s eyebrows shot up. It probably wouldn’t be appropriate to say, _I did figure you were fucking him_ , but it must’ve shown on Peter’s face, because Gwen went red.

“I’m not—we’re not. Together. Anymore. Not as far as I’m concerned. He’s gone to Oxford University to do his degree, just like his dad did, and I’m letting him assume I’m waiting for him. It suits my cover as the lovelorn fiancée awaiting his return. It’s earned Norman’s trust. To him, I’m an honorary member of the family.”

Peter swallowed. “Is… Is that safe? If he finds out you’re betraying him…”

“He won’t find out. The asshole even patted me consolingly on the shoulder when I mentioned that I was visiting you. I said I was just doing it out of pity, because you used to be my friend, but I had no doubt you’d committed the crimes you were accused of. After all, there was so much evidence, and it all led to you.”

“That’s—that’s a heck of a mental contortion you’re pulling off there, Gwen. It’s not like you. You can’t sustain it forever.”

“I can, and I will. You’re not who you were before, Peter, but neither am I.” Gwen’s mouth twisted. “I don’t love Harry anymore. He could’ve sided with us, with justice, because he goddamn well knew that his dad was a crook. But he didn’t. He sold us out and sucked up to his father instead, like the sycophantic little heir he is, terrified of losing his fortunes, because what would he be without them? Nothing,” Gwen spat. “ _Nothing_.”

“Uh,” said Peter, rather taken aback. Even Aunt May hadn’t been this angry on his behalf. Or at least not this openly angry. “Okay.”

Gwen sucked in a calming breath. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “I have. Er. Rage issues.”

“No kidding.”

“Don’t _you_?” Gwen blurted. “I’ve barely been able to keep myself from throwing mugs at walls while here you’re trapped _in_ walls, and you’re…” Gwen buried her face in her hands. Her voice, when it emerged, was tearful. “I just picture you being stuck in jail for days and days and years and years, and I can’t stand it. I can’t stand the injustice of it. How can you?”

Peter couldn’t answer for a couple of seconds. There was a strange, blistering surge of emotion within him, like the surging of a boiling, endless sea—and yes, perhaps it was the rage Gwen spoke of, that Peter couldn’t allow himself to feel. If he did, if his rage was all he had to cling on to in here, then he’d become it. It would be all he’d ever be. He’d become as vicious and heartless as the worst criminals in this prison.

And Peter couldn’t let himself become that. Not when he had Aunt May to go back to, a life to go back to. Not when he had Wade to love, to protect, just as Wade loved and protected him. That silent promise between them—the promise to be there for each other—could not be upheld if either of them succumbed to wrath, to the stifling futility of their empty, soul-crushing, repetitive lives. Peter had to be strong for Wade, just as Wade was strong for him. It was an equal exchange.

“I’m sorry,” Gwen said again, looking back up at Peter with watery eyes. “That was unfair. Obviously, you’re angrier about it than anyone else. You’re the person going through it.”

Peter faltered. He couldn’t quite meet Gwen’s eyes, shining with compassion as they were. He looked down at his folded hands, thinner and bonier than he remembered them being. Prison food wasn’t exactly nourishing. “I have no choice. If I start getting angry, I… I’m scared that I’ll never stop. I just have to quit fixating on it and carry on.”

Gwen sniffled. “Oh, Peter, that’s terrible.”

An uncomfortable lull fell between them. Peter hadn’t been in love with Gwen for years, but even as the friends they currently were, the distance between them was greater than ever, a crevasse too wide for their best intentions to bridge.

Gwen wasn’t just out of Peter’s league, now; she was out of his world. Hers was a world where she could still microwave a bowl of buttery popcorn and settle down to a night of binge-watching Netflix in her flannel pajamas. Hers was a world where she could bundle herself up in a winter coat and take a stroll down to Central Park to enjoy the Christmas lights.

But Peter’s was a world of perpetual stagnation, of constantly evading rape and lining up for tasteless dinners. He wasn’t even sure he’d recall what popcorn tasted like, when he eventually got out. He couldn’t walk anywhere on his own. He couldn’t even see a sunset, if he wanted to, because all he got to see of the sky from the exercise yard was an unchanging square of blue-gray at noon.

Peter was living in a box. An airless, lifeless box. It was roomy for a coffin, he supposed. The only glimmer of illumination in it—the only glimmer of hope—was Wade. Without Wade, wouldn’t Peter be as good as dead? On the inside, if not on the outside? Wouldn’t Peter have been ground to dust beneath the fists and the boots of the prisoners and the guards? Would even a smidgen of Aunt May’s nephew be left in him? Even a hint of Gwen Stacy’s friend?

Wade was keeping Peter alive, not just physically but emotionally. Even though Peter had just been with Wade an hour ago, he was already missing Wade—with a pang that he was suddenly certain was mutual. Wade was waiting for him. He had to get back.

“I wish I could hold your hand,” Gwen said abruptly. “It’s so bizarre, having this fake forcefield between us.”

“We could still hold hands.” Peter’s lips twitched. “Like Kirk and Spock. Touching palms through the glass.”

“Spock died in there, Peter. That’s awful!”

“Or Kirk died, in the new movie.”

“Ugh, the reboot.” Gwen wrinkled her nose. “Don’t speak of it again.”

“So you’re Star Trek purist? Tsk, tsk. Do your classmates in med school know what a nerd you are?”

“Yes, Peter,” Gwen said patiently, finally managing a smile, wobbly though it was. “They know I’m a nerd. We’re in med school. We’re all nerds.”

Peter lifted his hand and pressed it against the divider, his fingers parted in traditional Vulcan style. “Live long and prosper, Gwen.”

“Live long and prosper.” Gwen brought her own hand up, placing it right where Peter’s was, on her side of the screen. The warmth of her skin wasn’t palpable through the divider, which was cruelly, inhumanly cool. But Peter could imagine that warmth, dear and familiar—the warmth of a hand he had held so many times, when he’d mourned for Uncle Ben, and when Aunt May had fallen sick and he’d been terrified he’d lose her, too. And then, lastly, before his trial against Norman Osborn.

Gwen had always been there for him. Why would now be any different?

A bell rang in the background, signaling that visitations were over, and Gwen jumped. “I… I have to go.” Gwen clutched her purse to herself as she got up. “I’ll visit you again, Peter. And I’ll continue updating you about Project Rebirth.”

“Forget about that and focus on school. You and Ned, both.” Jesus, they were incorrigible. Peter cherished their loyalty, but not if it got them thrown in jail. “I’ll be all right in here,” Peter reassured her. “I have… I have a friend. A guardian, of sorts.”

“So May told me.” Gwen hovered hesitantly until a guard threw open the door and hustled her out. She disappeared in a swirl of yellow dress and golden hair.

Peter stared at the plastic pane, upon which the foggy impressions of Gwen’s fingertips were swiftly fading, like ghosts.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE PLOT THICKENS
> 
> ~~JUST LIKE WADE’S DICK~~


	13. Chapter 13

* * *

 

When Peter entered their cell, Wade was shuffling his cards. It was a case of déjà vu for Peter, a flashback to their initial meeting—Wade, sitting at the table, playing cards with himself. “Nobody visits you, do they, Wade?”

“Hm?” Wade blinked. “Nah. Well, Vanessa did. But I asked her not to.”

“Why not?”

Wade scratched his head. “Didn’t need her all hung up on me when she could be moving on. Why, what did your aunt say?” He winked. “Did she suggest you find a girlfriend on [Meet-An-Inmate.com](https://www.meet-an-inmate.com/)?”

“There’s a website for that? Never mind,” Peter answered his own question. “There’s a website for everything.”

Wade swiveled around in his chair and bounced his knee excitedly; he’d become attached to Aunt May by proxy. “So how’d it go, Petey? How’s Auntie May doing? Did she get that promotion she’d been gunning for?”

“I dunno. It wasn’t my aunt who was there.” Peter braced himself for Wade’s reaction. “It was Gwen.”

Wade dropped his cards. “That chick you crushed on in school?”

Peter squinted at him. “Crushed on, as in the past tense. You’re not insecure about me talking to her, are you?”

“Who, me?” Wade tittered nervously. “I, er. I wouldn’t know insecurity if it bit me in the ass.”

“Oh, it’s definitely biting you in the ass. I can see it hanging off your rear end.”

“Dang, you’re nasty. You’ve been ogling my rear end?”

“Wade. You’re projecting again.”

“Aw, that’s disappointing. You _don’t_ ogle my ass?”

“I’m more interested in, um.” Peter’s ears burned. “What’s in the… the front.”

Wade whistled. “That’s even nastier.”

“No, it’s not!”

“So you agree it’s nasty. Just not nastier?”

Peter snorted. He debated informing Wade about what Gwen and Ned were up to, but ultimately chose to delay his announcement until that night, just so he could decide how to divulge it.

Knowing Wade, he’d approve of Gwen’s and Ned’s newfound vigilantism. Peter had to shore up his arguments against it just to keep Wade from, like, writing them encouraging letters and declaring them bridesmaid and best man at his and Peter’s imaginary future wedding.

“Gwen’s just my friend. Honestly.” Peter doggedly guided their conversation back to its original topic, because if he didn’t, Wade would persist in digressing until they didn’t discuss what they had to. It was an excellent avoidance tactic. “I’m happy to know that she and Ned still care about me, that I still have friends. That I still have Aunt May. It’s just…” Peter leaned against the metal frame of their bunk beds. It dug uncomfortably into his vertebrae.

Wade’s expression switched modes from ‘Oh No My Boyfriend Met His Ex’ to ‘Supportive Husband’ in a fraction of a second. “It’s important that you meet them, because they mean a lot to you, but… But it’s also okay to acknowledge that seeing them makes you sad.”

“Sad?” Peter laughed jaggedly. “I guess. But it isn’t just about me missing them. Seeing them reminds me that I really am in jail. That this isn’t _normal_. That out there, people are living and growing instead of rotting inside a—inside a—”

“Corpse’s shell?”

Peter glared at Wade.

“Sorry. A guy’s just gotta quote ‘Thriller,’ sometimes.”

Through gritted teeth, Peter said, “A guy’s just gotta be strangled by his cellmate, sometimes.”

“Holy cripes. You’re into that?”

“Wade.”

“No, seriously. Never pegged you for a sadist.” Wade tapped his chin contemplatively. “Pegging in general, though…”

“ _Wade_.”

Wade waved at him encouragingly. “My apologies. Carry on.”

“Thanks for interrupting my tragic monologue.”

“I said I was sorry. Sheesh.”

“What I was saying was…” Peter slumped. “Imagine you and me, out there. Waking up together to sunlight from a proper window. Making each other coffee. Going for a morning run. And then—and then going to work, and coming home to our crappy li’l apartment, maybe ordering in so we can make out on our sagging couch until dinner’s delivered. Imagine us going grocery shopping, with you leering at the old checkout lady when she scans our condoms, and I have to elbow you to get you to stop.”

“That’s… a weirdly specific and weirdly accurate description,” Wade said. “Because I would do that. I would totally do that.”

“You’re not getting my point.” Peter exhaled gustily. “Imagine us _living_. Just like everybody else.”

“We’re living in here, too. Just not very well. But we are.”

“Are we? I mean, ’course we are, but—”

“Peter.” Wade’s tone wasn’t pitying. It was as if he shared Peter’s pain, like he understood it—understood it how Gwen and Aunt May and Ned never would.

“It’s just that…” Peter tugged at his hair in frustration. “Left in here, between visits from Aunt May or Gwen, I start forgetting what life is actually like. What it’s supposed to be like—boring and mundane and with just enough variety to keep us invested. It’s not supposed to be this… this occasionally enjoyable nightmare, half-terror and half-ecstasy, the terror of being attacked and the ecstasy of being loved. We could be so much more if we weren’t in prison, Wade. So much more.”

“Not me.” Wade sagged. “ _You_ could. Hell, you could get into NASA. You have so much potential. It’s practically leaking out of your ears.”

“Like my brain?” Peter scoffed. “By the time I’ve served my sentence, I won’t have a brainanymore.”

“Yes, you will. Masterminding an invisible, technological prison mutiny will nourish your brain cells. As for me? My brain cells are all gone, Petey. I washed them away with alcohol and mindless violence.”

Peter couldn’t help a small grin. “What about mindless sex? We could be having it, you know. Right now.”

“Using sex to escape our existential misery won’t be healthy for our relationship,” Wade said, like a goddamn relationship counselor.

“And suffering in unnecessary chastity is? Don’t pretend you’d be satisfied with that, Wade.”

“I ain’t pretending.” Wade cleared his throat. “I just… Whoa.”

That _whoa_ had been in response to Peter just sauntering up to Wade and… sinking onto his lap. “Bring back any fond memories?”

“Ha ha,” Wade croaked weakly. “You haven’t called me Daddy since then.”

Peter wrapped his arms around Wade’s neck and smiled down at him with an exaggerated, admittedly evil sweetness. “Would you like me to?”

Wade’s eyes went blank and glassy, as if he’d just been hit in the skull with a mallet and was experiencing a concussion. “Uh,” said Wade, followed by another, “Uh.”

Peter snickered. “Is that the only word you’re capable of forming?”

“Peter,” Wade said, almost pleadingly. It stole Peter’s breath.

But before Peter could act, Wade was pushing Peter away and off his lap.

“Wha…” Peter frowned. “Why?” This confirmed his suspicions, then. Wade _had_ been avoiding him ever since they’d had sex three days ago. He kept cock-blocking them. Today, evidently, was no exception. It couldn’t be about Gwen, because Peter had only just seen her, and Wade had been avoiding him before that.

“It’s—it’s nearly lunchtime,” Wade said. “When Pedro’s goons get here, we’ll go get lunch. Dunno about you, Pete, but I’m starving.”

_Not starving for me, apparently_ , Peter reflected resentfully. He’d have to suss out what had Wade tied up in knots this time, because it was becoming an annoying habit of his, withdrawing whenever he and Peter made any progress. It was always two steps forward, one step back.

But no more. Peter would get to the bottom of this.

No pun intended.

“Wade,” Peter said flatly, “it’s still an hour and a half until lunch.”

Wade coughed. “Don’t they say not to exercise a couple of hours before a meal?”

“That’s exercise. I’m talking about sex.”

“Sex is exercise. Very strenuous exercise.”

That did it. It was such a pathetic excuse. The only reason for Wade not being into having sex with him was that Peter must’ve been terrible at it.  “You genuinely don’t want me, huh? Was I so bad at it? Did I…” Peter flushed in humiliation. “Did I do it wrong?”

Wade gaped at Peter. “Wrong?” He shook his head. “If you’d done it any more right, I’d have detonated like a bomb.”

“That’s disturbingly violent imagery for sex.”

“I _felt_ disturbingly violent.” Wade was all but radiating shame. “And I… I was too rough with you. I bruised you. Your wrists look like someone was assaulting you. It was your first time, and rather than being giving, I just fucking— _took_.”

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?” Peter demanded incredulously. “Because you’re feeling guilty about blowing my mind?”

“That wasn’t—”

“That was exactly what you did, and I loved it.”

“Still. We shouldn’t jump into having sex everyday like there isn’t—like there isn’t still stuff you have to learn. That Ihave to learn. That we have to learn. About each other.”

Peter got that Wade was trying to give Peter his space, but this was too much space. “You’re just scared that it’ll be too much for you,” he accused Wade boldly, with more audacity than he had. “That I’ll be too much for you. Because I already am. You’re scared shitless of how I make you feel.”

There was a drawn-out pause. “Damn,” Wade said eventually. “You got me, kid.”

“Don’t call me ‘kid’ when we’re about to have sex.”

“Hey, it wasn’t me who mentioned the daddy kink. And who said we’re about to have sex?”

“Me.” But this wasn’t about bullying Wade into going along with him, and Peter had to remind Wade of that. “Only… only if you want to, though. Do you want to?”

Wade had never seemed more conflicted. “It’s not about what I—”

“Yeah, it is.” Peter scowled. “It literally is. Because what _I_ want isn’t in doubt.”

“Isn’t it? You were a virgin until three days ago. You can’t just leap into rampant debauchery like you’re some sorta sex guru. You have to wait for your feelings to catch up with you.”

“My feelings have more than caught up with me. In fact, they’re running ahead of me. If this was a marathon, they’d have won gold and I’d be lying by the side of the track, unconscious.”

“That’s a hell of an extended metaphor.”

“Not as extended as I could make your di—”

“ _Do not_ add ‘dick’ to that sentence.”

“I will if I want to,” Peter said mulishly.

“You’ve never even held another man’s dick.”

“And whose fault is that?”

Wade sighed. Like he had any right to be sighing!

“M-maybe,” Peter offered tentatively, “if you’re not comfortable with us doing it, we could start off with… looking?”

“L…” Wade’s voice cracked. “Looking?”

“If—if you reckon we shouldn’t be doing more touching. Maybe you could—if, if you didn’t mind—you could—show me?”

“Show you what?” Wade asked faintly.

“What you do when you’re, um. Masturbating.” Peter’s flush from before was returning with a vengeance. “We could… we could watch each other jerking off? That’d be hands-off enough for you, wouldn’t it?”

Wade appeared to be temporarily incapable of language. He just sat there like a statue. A particularly stunned statue. “Shit,” Wade said at last, with wonder and awe, like Peter had outwitted him in an obscure game of chess.

“C’mon,” Peter cajoled him, darting down to peck Wade lightly on the lips and then retreating, because Wade had indicated very strongly that he didn’t intend for them to have further sexual contact. Not until later. Much later. Bastard. “Please? It won’t be anything you don’t want it to be. And, like I said, it won’t just be you. To make it fair, I’ll… I’ll show you, too. I’ll show you what I do.”

“What you do,” Wade repeated brainlessly. Then, he shook himself and said, “No. You—you don’t have to put yourself on display for me. For the sake of my sanity, or whatever is left of it, _don’t_ put yourself on display for me.”

But Peter wasn’t giving up. “I will, if that’s what it takes to get you naked.”

Wade pinched the bridge of his nose. “Peter… This isn’t about equivalency. It isn’t a trade. If you’d like to see me naked, that doesn’t mean you have to let me see you.”

“No,” Peter said obstinately. “It’ll be unfair. And anyway, I…” He gulped. “I want to see what you… look like when you’re… looking at me.”

Wade’s eyes darkened.

“Oh,” Peter whispered. “ _Oh_. If you’re going to look at me like that… I… I haven’t even taken off my clothes, yet.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Peter.” Wade massaged his temples as if warding off a migraine. “This still counts as sex.”

“According to you, even standing on opposite hemispheres of the planet counts as sex.”

“It does with you.”

“Am I meant to be flattered by that?”

“Yes?”

“That wasn’t an answer, Wade.” Peter began unbuttoning his shirt with shaking fingers, because if he didn’t initiate this, he’d lose his nerve. Wade was right about one thing; Peter had only recently lost his virginity, and there was only so far his confidence could go. “If you’re fine with this, then I’ll… I’ll go on.”

Wade had frozen again. His eyes were wide, disbelieving, following the movements of Peter’s fingers as if glued to them.  It was only then that Peter truly comprehended the phrase ‘undressing me with your eyes,’ because that was obviously what Wade was doing, anticipating every inch of skin that Peter uncovered. Peter’s pulse stuttered.

“You… You’ve got to stop me.” The top few buttons of Peter’s shirt were now undone, sagging open and revealing his collarbones. “If you’re not into this, you’ve got to stop me, Wade.”

“Me?” Wade rasped. “Stop you? When have I ever been able to do that?”

So Peter didn’t stop. Once his shirt was off, Peter discarded it on the floor and backed up, reclining gingerly on the lower bunk so he could pull off his pants without hopping around like an uncoordinated loser.

Wade didn’t seem to think he was a loser. Wade, on the contrary, had gone completely scarlet, like he’d been scalded with boiling water. His scars stood out starkly, pale against all that flaming red.

Finally, with a somewhat awkward tug, Peter kicked his pants and his underwear aside.

He was exposed.

Wade stared at him as if at a revelation.

Peter fought not to hug himself, not to hide his thin, unimpressive frame from view. That would defeat the purpose of this whole endeavor. If he couldn’t even do this—if he couldn’t even be unclothed in front of Wade in a context that wasn’t a daily prison-mandated shower—then Wade would never concede to having sex with him.

So, although his shyness insisted that he draw his legs up and together, Peter drew on every ounce of bravery he had and spread his legs apart.

Wade growled. It was a short, aborted growl, but a growl nonetheless. Wade’s hands were white-knuckled on the armrests of his chair.

Peter was beginning to shiver. He wasn’t sure if it was because the air was so cool, or if it was because he was so _hot_ , his entire body alight with a slowly simmering blush that brought warmth to his cheeks even as his nipples pebbled in the cold.

And he was hard. He’d been getting hard ever since he’d begun stripping, but now he was fully, undeniably aroused. What made it worse—or better, infinitely better—was that Wade was watching him.  “What… What do you see?” Peter asked unsteadily. “Tell me, Wade.”

Wade didn’t reply. He was panting. His pupils were blown, his gaze dangerously heated, frighteningly feral. He looked—god, he looked like he was starving. Like he was scarcely hanging on to his humanity.

It should’ve been intimidating, but it only ratcheted up Peter’s heartbeat, striking a matching hunger in him, like to like. He trailed his fingers up his soft inner thighs, teasing himself, his shiver developing into a shudder when sparks of delight raced through him. “Wish… wish you were touching me like this,” Peter gasped.

At that, Wade’s stillness shattered. Groaning, he palmed himself roughly through his pants. He was as hard as Peter was, Wade’s erection straining against the worn fabric of his prison uniform. “Wanna know what I see?” Wade said harshly, desperately. “I see a boy who has _no fucking idea_ what he’s doing to me.”

“Then tell me.” Peter couldn’t look away from Wade, either. “No, don’t just tell me. Show me.”

Breathing raggedly, Wade tore off his shirt with a force that was almost vengeful. A button pinged off the table. Wade yanked his pants off with similar haste, falling back into his chair, his hand immediately closing around his bare cock. He pumped, once, and Peter’s hips lurched upward as if Wade had done that to _him_.

“Fuck,” Peter said, shocked. Wade was huge. Peter had known that, of course, but seeing Wade’s mammoth proportions in private was nothing like seeing them in the showers, surrounded by strangers. Wade’s pectorals flexed as he moved his hand, his biceps bunching rhythmically. It was hypnotic. Every serrated scar and bulging muscle was thrown into relief by the sole overhead lamp—and then there was Wade’s cock, oozing pre-come, heavy and swollen and ruddy within Wade’s grasp.

Peter’s own prick dribbled, and he reached for it without taking his eyes off Wade. Wade’s scars rippled, and in the cell’s customary dimness, they resembled the stripes of a tiger. Being watched by Wade was like being watched by a carnivore, by a large, fanged beast of prey just before it pounced.

If only Wade would pounce. Peter could picture it so easily—Wade getting off that chair and stalking toward Peter, predatory and intent, only to shove Peter down on the bed and climb atop him, mauling him so _gently_ , with kisses and scratches and bites—

“Ah, _ah_!” Peter arched helplessly, unable to prevent those embarrassing exclamations from leaving him. Wade could hear them all—Peter’s garbled moans and his startled, hitching whimpers. It should’ve made Peter bashful, but it only made him needy. Feverishly, incandescently needy.

Sweat trickled down Peter’s back. The paths it charted were prickly and itchy, but a wilder, hotter, crueler itch had taken up residence inside him, like a barbed wire in his veins, twisting and spooling. It gathered in his lower belly, a distant echo of building pleasure, a warning of oncoming ecstasy, like lightning before a storm. Each sizzle of it through his nerves stoked the fire in him ever higher.

“S-say it, Wade,” Peter stammered. “How… how do you want me to… t-touch myself?”

Wade cursed. “Your nipples,” he said after a while, sounding wrecked, as if Peter had broken his will. “Touch—touch yourself there, oh, _fuck_ , Peter—”

Peter obeyed instantly, hissing at the scrape of his thumbnail against his left nipple, the sensation raw and strangely vulnerable, strangely electric.

“Pinch them,” Wade continued deliriously, his eyes black with lust and self-loathing. “Pinch ’em hard enough for them to hurt. Pinch them like I would if I wasn’t so fucking in love with you that the thought of hurting you makes me hurt ten times more.”

“Wade,” Peter sobbed, and then cried out when he pinched his nipples with his spare hand. The harder he pinched them, the deeper they throbbed, going puffy and over-sensitive and sore. They tingled like bee-stings when he released them. They’d darkened to the shade of overripe berries, and Peter could see Wade swallow at the sight of them, their obscenely dusky pink. They hurt, just like Wade had said they would. They hurt, but they hurt so _good_.

A sharp lance of yearning sliced through Peter, a yearning to have Wade do this to him, to have Wade hurt him like this. Just the image of it had Peter trembling at its sheer savagery, the savagery that Wade was confessing to, that Wade wanted to unleash on him. Oh, god. Wade _wanted_ —

Peter’s dick was leaking so copiously that his palm was slick with it, each glide of it frustratingly slippery. He tightened his grip on himself, noting that Wade was doing the same—that Wade was quickening the strokes of his own cock, his eyes darting between Peter’s nipples and Peter’s face. Wade’s chest rose and fell under a sheen of perspiration. It gleamed, and Peter longed to taste it, to taste the saltiness and muskiness of Wade’s desire.

“Wanna… Wanna run my tongue down your chest,” Peter babbled. “All the way down to your—your stomach, your—”

Wade’s stroking faltered only to resume even faster, even rougher, like he was punishing himself. “Don’t,” Wade said dazedly,  frantically. “Don’t talk, Peter. Just. _Don’t_.”

Blood pounded in Peter’s ears. He was mesmerized by the thick vein twining around Wade’s cock. It pulsed visibly, tempting, beckoning.

“Peter. Peter…” Wade was chanting Peter’s name, a continuous, fervent litany that could only just be deciphered. As if he wasn’t even aware of it, Wade murmured, “Can’t stop remembering how you looked, how you sounded when you came. It’s been driving me crazy. You’ve been driving me crazy.”

“Then…” Peter’s hand was a blur on his dick. He was close, so close, but he had to take Wade over the edge with him. “Let me see you come, too. At least… if I can’t t-touch you, let me _see_ …”

Wade grunted. He buckled inwards, hunching over, and then he  came—spine curving, cock shooting spurt after spurt of semen over his knuckles and across his quivering belly. Wade’s features were contorted as if in agony, and he looked so lost, so lonely—so unbearably lonely, _no_ —

Peter staggered to his feet and over to Wade, collapsing on top of him and kissing him wetly, messily. Peter came like that, surging against Wade, moaning into Wade’s mouth, holding him and holding him and holding him. 

“Not alone,” Peter kept saying all through it, even through the blistering shockwaves drowning him, undoing him. “Wade, you’re not alone. Wade…”

Minutes passed. They caught their breaths, foreheads pressed together, leaning into each other.

Wade was holding Peter right back.

He was carding his fingers through Peter’s hair, lightly, soothingly, in a caress that was oddly protective. Wade tucked the loose curls behind Peter’s ears; Peter was due for a haircut.

A quiet bliss filled Peter then; he couldn’t have described it, but it had to do with how Wade cherished him, and how Wade had stated, out loud, that he loved Peter. The magnitude of that admission didn’t rock Peter to the core, as he might have expected; rather, it pervaded Peter like a slow spill of honey, a subtle, molten glow that lit him from within.

“You’re unbelievable,” Wade mumbled. “Trust you to take what shouldn’t have been so ridiculously intense and turn it into some kinda soul-wringing ordeal.”

“Mm,” said Peter sleepily. His soul was certainly wrung out.

“And as if that wasn’t tiring enough, we’re gonna have to walk to the mess hall stinking like a brothel.”

“Shower’s straight afterward.” Peter yawned. A golden lassitude was blanketing him, and Wade was naked underneath him, all two-hundred-and-ten pounds of solid muscle and blazing skin. Relaxing in Wade’s arms was more luxurious than relaxing in a jacuzzi. Not that Peter had ever relaxed in a jacuzzi. But he was convinced that this was a far superior experience.

“Yeah, _afterward_. We’ll be lining up for mashed potatoes and turnip soup smelling like Eau de Jizz.”

“Still nicer than what the food smells like.” Peter nuzzled into Wade’s shoulder, which did, indeed, smell pretty damn delicious. “Consider it a badge of honor.”

“Weren’t you self-conscious before you became a seductive, man-eating siren?” Wade jostled Peter on his lap, but Peter’s eyelids were already drooping. “What happened to you?”

“A mind-blowing orgasm happened to me.” Peter yawned again. “Can we nap till lunchtime? And _don’t_ put your clothes back on.”

“Yes, your highness,” Wade said dryly.

Peter was vaguely conscious of Wade lifting him, all deliberately leashed power and careful tenderness, and depositing him on the bed. He was drifting off as soon as Wade settled in beside him.

“Jeez,” grumbled Wade, as Peter instinctively curled around him. “You’re like a kitten.”

It wasn’t a very heartfelt complaint.

 

* * *

 


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is just a reminder that the name of the prison Peter and Wade are in is the Grantham Correctional Facility. So if Peter mentions Grantham, that’s what he’s talking about.
> 
> Oh, and I’m woefully uneducated about hacking, so if you’re actually a computer specialist, please forgive my ignorance. My understanding of hacking is about as up-to-date as that Sandra Bullock movie from the nineties.
> 
> Also, a note on Pedro, just in case y’all are wondering—he ain’t white. He’s biracial, in the sense that his Italian father was white and his Mexican mother wasn’t. Basically, Pedro is a mixed-race Latino who spent most of his childhood in Italy and England before migrating to America. (As a migrant, I can’t resist adding migrants to this story!) His full history will be revealed in subsequent chapters.
> 
> The next chapter will introduce one of the other major political players in the prison—the Reverend, an aged priest with a vigilante philosophy a tad _too_ compatible with Wade’s. Er, yay?

* * *

 

That evening, Peter steeled himself and told Wade about Project Rebirth and about the allies that Peter had on the inside. That he potentially had on the inside. Explaining his friends’ well-meaning misadventures to Wade went just as Peter had foreseen—which was to say, Gwen and Ned had a new fan. A somewhat deranged new fan. If they were rock stars, Wade would probably be putting up posters of them on the cell walls. Heck, Wade would probably put up posters of them regardless. They’d achieved more than just rock star status with him. His eyes shone with hero worship.

“Those are some ride-or-die motherfuckers,” Wade said admiringly. “You’re lucky, Pete, having buddies like them.”

“Buddies that’re shortly gonna end up in jail with me.” Peter crossed his arms and sulked. “And because I’m stuck in prison, I can’t even help them. Not unless Grantham gets put on the list for Project Rebirth’s launch, and I can hack any files our august institution has on the project.” Peter shot Wade a warning look. “Not that I’ll allow you to volunteer for it, even if it does get introduced here.”

“Eh,” said Wade. “Getting out and spending the rest of my life with you after _you_ get out? That doesn’t sound too bad.”

“Don’t. You. Dare.” Peter grabbed Wade by the collar and glowered at him. “Don’t ever get involved with anything remotely related to Norman Osborn. You’ll live to regret it. Or you won’t, because _you won’t live_. Human experimentation aimed only at those who’re on death row or those who have life sentences should tell you how high the stakes are. They’re targeting inmates who reckon they have nothing to lose, but they do. You could lose your life, Wade. You could lose your limbs. Your organs. Just… don’t mess with Osborn.”

“Your friends are messing with Osborn.”

“I wish they weren’t, either! If—if only I could stop them—”

“Peter.” Wade was uncharacteristically somber. “You can’t stop them. What they do for you is their free will. You can’t influence it, and you can’t alter it. You have to accept that the people who love you don’t want you to stay in prison. And that includes me.”

Peter recoiled like he’d been slapped. He usually tried not to dwell on the fact that he was only in for eight years—partly because even eight years felt like forever, but partly because he couldn’t tolerate abandoning Wade to endure this hell on his own. Peter had hoped they wouldn’t have to discuss it, not for many years yet.

“I…” Peter recalled his chat with Gwen, and how incredulous she’d been when he’d said he wasn’t especially invested in leaving prison early. There was a horrible churning in his stomach, a horrible cracking in his chest. It was like he was splitting open from the inside out. “I don’t want to leave you, Wade.”

“But you will. You have to. You think I wanna be the reason you’re stuck in here? You gotta go back to college, Petey. Gwen was right. You have to graduate. Make groundbreaking discoveries. World-saving discoveries.”

“And you’ll just ask me to forget you, to stop visiting you, like you asked Vanessa?”

Wade winced. “Look, you’ll get tired of conjugal visits being the only action—the only _affection_ —you get. At some point.”

“No. No, I won’t.”

“Pete.” Wade was so kind. His eyes had such compassion in them, such forgiveness. “It’s okay.”

“It’s—” Peter’s voice broke. “It’s not okay. And… And I won’t forget you. I swear. I won’t just walk away. I won’t stop visiting. I won’t be able to. Every moment you’re not with me is a moment I’ll ache, and ache, and _ache_.”

Wade briefly closed his eyes, as if he couldn’t bear the faith, the unshakeable truth in Peter’s declaration. “That doesn’t mean you won’t still have to get over me.”

“I won’t,” Peter whispered certainly, despairingly. His heart echoed the words, deep as fate, deep as a cut that would never heal. “I won’t.”

“You will.”

Peter began quaking, a wave of cold inevitability washing over him. He felt sick. Like he could throw up.

“Hey.” Wade bopped Peter softly on the nose, and then hugged him. It was a crushingly tight hug, like Wade’s body had to keep Peter near even if Wade’s mind was telling it that it couldn’t. “That doesn’t mean you don’t love me, Peter. Or that I don’t love you. It’s just the way it is.”

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“Oh?” A trace of amusement returned to Wade’s tone. “What’re you going to do, break me out with your smarts?”

Peter squared his jaw. “I might.”

Wade chuckled into Peter’s collarbone. “Hm,” he said affectionately, indulgently. “Maybe you will.”

Peter closed his own eyes, too, because he wasn’t sure he could see Wade in front of him and survive the thought of never seeing him again.

There were still directions in which this conversation could go, that it had to go. But not today. Peter couldn’t take it today.

And maybe Wade sensed that, because he just rocked Peter in his arms, kissing Peter’s brow, his temple, his eyelids, his mouth. Their kisses melted together, tentative as if they were both wounded, as if they were both afraid of the future but couldn’t help needing each other in spite of it. It was as if they were touching beyond the skin, somewhere where they could not be parted, where the distance between their bodies could not, would not matter. Not ever.

It was sweet, sweet as the darkest wine, blood-warm and intoxicating. Peter let himself fall into it as if into the boundless comfort of the night, where it was too pitch-black to see the edges of things, the sharp edges upon which he might cut himself.

 

* * *

 

The three weeks Pedro had given Peter to hack into the prison computers had almost elapsed. With Dopinder as his accomplice, Peter had managed to rig Dopinder’s pirated iPhone up to the internet, and to reroute the signal through the darknet until the IP was untraceable.

When Peter transported the iPhone to Pedro, it was strapped under his shirt by strips of cloth, because there were no pockets in maximum security prison uniforms and Peter was _not_ going to carry a phone in his ass. That was—no. Just. No. Wade, however, found the prospect of a butt-phone hilarious. Of course he did. He even called it an “inbuilt vibrator” and offered to take it to Pedro himself.

Jackass.

They were back to normal, now—or as normal as they ever got—and Wade wasn’t walking on eggshells around Peter anymore, as shamefaced as if he’d been responsible for raising the topic of their unavoidable separation. Thankfully, that phase hadn’t lasted, not with Peter’s stubbornness chipping away at Wade’s self-imposed torment. They’d reverted to their customary banter, with Wade still sidestepping Peter’s attempts at getting him into bed.

_Jackass_.

The least they could do was to get fabulous sex out of the eight years they had together. It was only logical. Peter was determined to make as many memories with Wade as he could, while he could. They’d have to be enough to sustain him for a lifetime.

They wouldn’t be. Only being with Wade would ever be enough. But Peter had to pretend otherwise, or he’d break, and Wade would break right along with him.

So Peter plastered his game face on and marched to the library, escorted by one of Pedro’s men. Wade had argued that he should accompany Peter, but Peter had reassured Wade that he was safe enough with Pedro’s guard, and besides, Peter wouldn’t gain any credibility if Wade was always hovering around him like an overprotective nanny.

“They underestimate me,” Peter had said to Wade. “I have to change that.”

And Wade had relented. Not happily, but he had, because he respected Peter’s choices—just as Wade had advised Peter to respect Gwen’s and Ned’s choices.

It was weird, how much Wade was teaching Peter about respect and how crucial it was, especially since Wade was a convicted serial killer with a collection of specialist knives that he still got all misty-eyed about. He reminisced about those knives like most guys reminisced about ex-girlfriends.

When Peter got to the library, he knocked on the open door. The tableau was just as it was before—Pedro seated at the main desk, surrounded by bodyguards stationed all over the library, noses buried in books they clearly weren’t reading. What a waste it was; even Peter would contemplate becoming a goon if it got him these many hours around books. Pedro would be grateful for the companionship.

The concept of a prison book club flashed through Peter’s mind, incongruous but worth exploring. Pedro and Peter couldn’t be the only nerds at Grantham.

Pedro looked up, his gray eyes light against his tawny complexion. God, those eyes were petrifying. For Peter, it was like having razors leveled at him; he twitched fearfully before he could prevent it. Having the appropriate body language around a fellow as observant as Pedro was imperative, but Peter had just failed that most basic of tests, and as expected, Pedro’s keen gaze had taken it all in.

“Mr. Parker,” he greeted Peter, calm as ever. “I hope you have good news for me.”

That… that was absolutely a threat. Peter fought the urge to twitch again. “I do,” he said instead, confidently, and strode in past the bodyguards as if they didn’t exist. He claimed the chair opposite Pedro’s and lifted his shirt to expose his torso. “I have the phone for you, right here. May I remove it?”

“That ain’t all he can remove,” muttered a guard behind Peter, appreciatively, and Peter flushed.

He didn’t lower his shirt, though. He wasn’t going to give in to sexual harassment.

Pedro made a moue of distaste—not at Peter, but at his guard.  “Don’t be juvenile, Miguel,” he said in annoyance. He was, evidently, completely unaffected by Peter’s semi-nudity, and in that instant, Peter felt a rush of peculiar gratitude toward him. “Yes, you may remove what you have strapped to yourself, Mr. Parker. If it’s a wiretap or a concealed weapon, you’re dead. But you know that.”

“I do.” Wow. Death. Nice, bringing that up at the very beginning. But Peter was formed of hardier stuff than he had been when he’d been arrested; mentions of death didn’t phase him. He confronted death everyday. “I wouldn’t risk my neck hacking into the system only to get murdered in the library.” Peter caught a glimpse of a large tome on Pedro’s desk, just underneath the library catalog; the title on the spine read _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ , an ironic selection for a prison inmate. “Wouldn’t want to get any bloodstains on the books.”

“I do treasure my books,” Pedro deadpanned. But there was a hint of pleasure in his statement, the same pleasure he’d shown when he’d last interacted with Peter.

Peter unwrapped the strips of fabric holding the phone in place, and it fell onto his palm. He swiped on the lock-screen and entered the password, going to the custom-made VOIP application he’d programmed for the device and launching it. “I’ve, er. I’ve invented this app to help route the calls. I’ve trialed it on numbers I know—like my college and the Pizza Hut adjoining my home—and on numbers Dopinder knows. None of our numbers showed up in the prison records, which means I succeeded. Whatever video or audio calls you key in through this app will go undetected. They’ll all be encrypted; there are encryptions on this phone that rival those of most cryptocurrencies.”

“Spare me the marketing spiel and give me the phone.” Pedro held out his hand, and Peter dropped the iPhone into it, hoping Pedro wasn’t grossed out by how tepid the phone’s surface was from its recent contact with Peter’s flesh. “If you’re lying,” Pedro forewarned, “and if I later learn that my calls were indeed detected or reported to the police, then you’re also dead.”

“Yeah,” Peter said wryly. “I got that the first time.”

Surprisingly, Pedro grinned. And immediately dialed a number. It must be a number he’d memorized. A critical number.

Peter fidgeted, abruptly terrified that the call wouldn’t go through.

But it did.

“Pedro?” said an elderly woman, and the screen, which Pedro hadn’t entirely angled away from Peter, showed an aging Latina clad in a pastel-pink cardigan and ivory-white pearls. In the background was a delicate, enameled dining table with a heap of knitted tea cozies on it, and in the woman’s wizened, wrinkled old hands was a pair of knitting needles. “So the baby chick you wrote to me about has hatched, has he?”

Pedro smirked at Peter, and Peter mouthed, _Am I the baby chick?_

Pedro coughed as if to cover a laugh, and said into the phone, “Abuela. How are you?”

“As well as I can be given that my diamonds have yet to cross the border.”

Her _what?_ Peter’s eyeballs bugged out.

“I’ve lost four fools to the Irish,” she continued.

Pedro tsked regretfully. “Lost as in, the Irish killed them, or lost as in, you killed them for betraying us?”

“A bit of both,” Pedro’s apparently homicidal grandma admitted, as Peter’s jaw all but unhinged itself in amazement.

“You’re scandalizing the chick,” Pedro said fondly. “We shouldn’t converse any further on particulars, just in case his assertion of encryption is false advertising. Anyhow, it isn’t like the FBI haven’t already been tracking the diamonds; I assume you’ve enacted the necessary evasive maneuvers?”

“Was that a Star Trek reference?” Peter squeaked, but Pedro ignored him.

“You don’t have to remind me,” the evil grandma from hell drawled, in a deadpan identical to her grandson’s. Genetics ran strong in Pedro’s family, it seemed. “I’m not the child here, Pedro. You are.”

And she hung up.

Pedro regarded the phone with satisfaction, and handed it back to Peter. “I can’t keep the phone lest it be found on my person; I’d rather it was found on yours.”

“So I take the blame for having it?”

“The blame, and the attendant prison sentence extension.”

But Peter was still struggling to comprehend what he’d seen. “Does… Does your grandmother stab traitors in the eyes with those knitting needles, or what?”

“Or what,” Pedro concurred, to Peter’s profound horror. “Those knitting needles are more feared in our group than any other method of execution.”

“I… I’m going to pass out.”

“Please don’t,” Pedro admonished him. “I have no intention of carrying you back to your cell, Cinderella-style.”

“Couldn’t you just hand me off to your guards?”

“And entrust them with your virtue? While you’re unconscious? Don’t be absurd.”

“Thank you for preserving my chastity, I guess.” Wait, why would Pedro even do that? Was there some code of honor in this situation that Peter was unaware of?

“Considering that you’re shacking up with Deadpool, your chastity must be extinct.”

If only it were; Peter couldn’t confide his woes about his sexual frustration to Pedro. Nor could he reveal that Wade wasn’t plowing Peter’s ass on the regular—forget plowing, they hadn’t even had hands-on sex.

Taking Peter’s reticence as assent, Pedro said, “I presume, based on your previous audience with me, that you intend to share this prized resource with various groups and individuals. Again, I would counsel you against doing so.”

“Sorry, but my original intention stands. I will help any inmates who need to communicate with their families. Like you just communicated with your grandma.”

“It was only a social call, as we cannot review specific strategies over the phone.” Wistfulness added a humanness to Pedro’s cool demeanor; after all, he was forbidden visits altogether as a disciplinary measure for violating prison laws repeatedly. “But at least I can hear her, see her.”

Jesus. Peter’s innards squeezed in sympathy, because he knew that feeling. He missed Aunt May, too. But how could anybody miss that… that… gorgon of a woman that Pedro had just spoken to? She killed people _with knitting needles_. Even Wade wasn’t that unhinged. Was he?

“Er, speaking of dissuading,” Peter digressed, because critiquing Pedro’s grandmother would guarantee his being slaughtered on the spot. “I have to dissuade you from, uh. An opportunity that might be headed toward you that you definitely should not avail yourself of.”

“Oh?” Pedro leaned back, a wolfish hook curling his thin upper lip. “You’re adapting to the jargon of the criminal world admirably. Do go on.”

“I can’t just… say it… with witnesses around us. It’s highly classified.” Peter gestured uncomfortably at the guards. “Could you send them away? I have to speak to you alone.”

Pedro’s bodyguards exchanged suggestive leers, likely inferring that Peter would offer to suck Pedro’s cock, or perform similar sex acts. Again, Pedro quashed their licentious sniggering with a glare. He obviously didn’t have any patience for coarseness. To Peter, he said, “You do realize you’re asking me to expel my bodyguards from a room in which you are the only occupant aside from myself.”

“Um, yes?” Peter blinked. Then, belatedly recognizing that Pedro wasn’t implying what his minions were, Peter hurried to clarify, “I won’t assassinate you, I promise.”

Pedro snorted. “You couldn’t, even if you planned to. I would overpower you easily. It is merely a flouting of tradition to banish one’s guards in the presence of a stranger not in the group. It suggests that I have more confidence in that stranger than I do in my group. Which sets a poor precedent.”

“And you’re all about precedents, aren’t you?” Maybe that explained Pedro’s worshipful attitude toward his grandma; she outranked Pedro in age and wisdom, and because of that, he would never disobey her. To be quite frank, his misplaced adoration for her gave Peter the heebie-jeebies. Peter would be compulsively psychoanalyzing it for the rest of the day.

Pedro himself was studying Peter as he would a puzzle, doing some psychoanalyzing of his own. Then, ostensibly resolving to take a gamble, Pedro waved at his thugs imperiously. “You heard the man. Leave.”

And they did. Peter could discern, from their lingering leers and lack of resistance, that they really were envisioning Pedro nailing Peter on that library desk—that they were cheering their boss on, even. What deluded, one-track minds those losers had.

They’d better be deluded, or else Peter would soon be thoroughly deflowered by Pedro. Asking for them to leave might’ve been a grave miscalculation.

As the bodyguards filed out and shut the door behind them, Peter fiddled with his phone, increasingly anxious. Did he have to do this?

Yeah. Yeah, he did. He still had a conscience, and he wouldn’t let his incarceration destroy it.

Pedro quirked an interrogative eyebrow. “Talk.”

Peter set his shoulders and lifted his chin. Cowering wouldn’t make him any more persuasive. “This is about Oscorp. Ever heard of it?”

Pedro, all-knowing sonovabitch that he was, just rattled off all the facts about Oscorp that could conceivably be rattled off by someone who wasn’t _in_ Oscorp. “A biotech and pharmaceutical giant, consistently ranked in the top ten of the Fortune 500. Allegedly involved in price fixing, bank fraud, and illegal medical research, with class-action lawsuits having been brought against it—unsuccessfully—in 1996, 2001, 2009 and 2012. And, furthermore, the company whose CEO put you in prison.”

Peter gawked at him.

Pedro tilted his head. “Am I correct?”

“How… How do you know that Norman Osborn framed me?”

“I don’t objectively know that he framed you, although I have deduced that he did, given your unfamiliarity with felonious undertakings and your extremely inconvenient scruples.”

Peter huffed. “I like my scruples.”

“Most innocents do.” Pedro said it pityingly, like innocence was an unfortunate character flaw. “As for _why_ I know… I like to be informed about my potential enemies—and my potential allies.”

“Which am I?”

“A bit of both,” Pedro echoed his grandmother, and smiled. It was a chilling smile, utterly devoid of emotion.

Peter shivered. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You should.”

“Uh, so about Oscorp… This isn’t out in the public yet, but it will be in the next couple of weeks. They’re—Norman Osborn’s collaborating with the government on human experimentation. Their goal is to figure out how to create super-soldiers. Soldiers that don’t, um. Die.”

Pedro’s eyebrow, thus far only slightly raised, climbed to new heights. It was practically at his hairline. “Have you been reading too many comic books, Mr. Parker? Or do you honestly believe I’m that gullible?”

“You’re about as gullible as Havelock Vetinari,” Peter said, and wasn’t even shocked when Pedro got his literary allusion.

“I’ll take _that_ as a compliment.”

“You’re welcome.”

“If Oscorp is venturing into science fiction territory, why should I be interested?”

“Oh, c’mon. You’re interested in everything. You’re just that kinda dude.”

Pedro appeared mildly astonished. “You display an unusual degree of understanding as regards to my internal workings.”

“You’re not as unfathomable as you think you are.”

“To most people, I am.” Pedro was studying Peter again, a little too closely for Peter’s comfort.

Peter shifted uneasily. “Not to me. And you’ll be plenty interested when Oscorp brings Project Rebirth—that’s what it’s called—into prisons across the nation. Including, possibly, this prison. They’ll be inviting ‘volunteers’ from among prisoners who have life sentences or who are on death row. Volunteers that the experimentation process will, in all likelihood, maim, dismember or kill.” Bile rose in Peter’s throat; he was repulsed by science being misused in this manner. “But even knowing that, there’re prisoners who will sign up on the off-chance that it’ll win them their freedom.”

Pedro hummed thoughtfully. “That’s the reward for volunteering, isn’t it? Freedom?”

“Yep. Tempting, huh? Except that it’s a terrible idea. Don’t do it. And don’t let your guys do it. You have power over a whopping third of the prison population at Grantham. If you ban your flunkies from participating in Project Rebirth, they’ll be saved from more agony than you can imagine. Trust me.”

Pedro didn’t demand, _Why should I trust you?_   Which had to be progress. Pedro only studied Peter with renewed intensity.

It was like being a bug under a magnifying glass. Peter squirmed. “Well, you won’t get the chance to volunteer, anyway, since you’re not in for life.”

“No,” Pedro said serenely. “Only fifteen years. A pittance compared to the sentences of murderers like Deadpool.”

“Right. Like you’ve never murdered anyone.”

Pedro’s eyes went all wide and guileless. “Why, I’d never.”

Why did Peter sort of want to giggle? This wasn’t funny. Murder wasn’t funny. “Nah, you just don’t like getting your hands dirty by murdering your victims yourself. You must order murders like most folks order cappuccinos at Starbucks.”

“As I said.” Pedro’s features took on a distinctly reptilian cast, part-pleased and part-speculative. “You are uncommonly perceptive about my inner workings.”

“When you’re not in jail, you wear suits 24/7, don’t you? I bet you even wear suits to _breakfast_. No wonder you don’t wanna get, like, guts and gore all over your Armanis.”

“Zegnas.” Something resembling genuine amusement was pulling at Pedro’s mouth. “I prefer Zegnas.”

“Goddamn Italians,” Peter griped under his breath.

“Half-Italian, technically.” Pedro drummed his fingers idly on the edge of his desk.  “Why are you telling me this? If it’s true, then this is expensive information.”

“Expensive…?” Peter frowned in confusion. “But I’m not charging you for it.”

Pedro didn’t roll his eyes, not physically, but Peter got the impression that he was doing it mentally. “You should be. Information has value, Mr. Parker. Therefore, information has a price. What is your price? Name it, and you shall have it.”

“What type of depraved asshole would I be to earn money off of this?” Peter snapped, before remembering who he was addressing and tempering his moral indignation. “This is human experimentation we’re talking about, not a—a business enterprise!”

Pedro was unmoved. “To Norman Osborn, it _is_ a business enterprise.”

“That’s because he’s a psychopath.”

“And I’m not?”

“No,” said Peter, with an assurance that came outta nowhere, blindsiding him. “You’re not.”

Pedro went _still_ , all of a sudden, like a snake in the underbrush, poised to strike. He murmured, hushed and dangerous, “Most of my associates would disagree with your assessment.”

“That’s because you play the role very, very well. Hell, you almost had me convinced. But you don’t have your grandma convinced, do you?”

The snake uncoiled. Slowly. Peter could see it in the barely-visible tension bleeding away from Pedro’s shoulders, like a cloak that Pedro was methodically, deliberately shedding. “That is an exceedingly rare opinion,” Pedro remarked, unruffled once again. “As in, only you and my grandmother share it. More importantly, why are you still abreast of developments within a company from which you were fired and by which you were framed? You couldn’t have informants on the inside, could you?”

Peter did his best not to go all shifty-eyed. He was scarcely an average liar, even after all of Wade’s lessons on bluffing. “No. I mean, of course I don’t.”

“My, my, Mr. Parker,” Pedro said approvingly. “How devious of you.”

Great. So Pedro had ferreted it out in 0.0001 seconds flat. Which he would, wouldn’t he? “I ask that you, um, commit to the anonymity of my sources and don’t try to discover their identities. Because if you do, I—and, by extension, you—will lose the intelligence they can funnel to me. Us.”

“Is there an ‘us,’ Mr. Parker?”

“When it comes to being human, yeah. There is an us. You’re human, as are your toadies, as are all the inmates in this facility. And I’m gonna go to every leader in this godforsaken jail and pester them till they decide that they can’t permit their guys to join Project Rebirth.”

“Because they’re human, too, and you can’t abide their suffering?” Pedro didn’t say it patronizingly. He was solemn, even… envious? No, that required more sentiment than Pedro was capable of. But there was _some_ feeling stirring in the depths of the frosty lake that was Pedro’s imperturbable mien, even though Peter couldn’t pinpoint what that feeling was.

Still, it was a relief to have Pedro just outright state what Peter had, incoherently, been trying to articulate. “Exactly.”

“So you’re helping me—and the gentlemen in my employ—solely out of the goodness of your heart?”

Peter beamed. “Seems like it.”

“You are deplorably idealistic.”

“Doesn’t match with the fugly orange jumpsuit, does it?” Peter jogged his knee impatiently. “So, whaddaya say? When the news about Project Rebirth becomes public and you can confirm my account, what’ll your stance be? Will you authorize your lackeys to sign up for it?”

Pedro didn’t answer.  He got up from his chair and strolled to the library window. It was among the few accessible windows in the prison, although its view of the compound was marred by sturdy iron bars. After a lull in which he peered meditatively out onto the grounds, Pedro said, “You’re a joker.”

“Gee, thanks, I knew you didn’t take me seriously, but—”

“I meant, a Joker with a capital J. A wildcard. No, worse than a wildcard. We’re all busy playing an intricate card game in here, all poker faces and counter-bluffs, and in you wander to sweep all our cards off the table.”

“And that’s... bad?”

Pedro turned to look at Peter again. “You tell me, Mr. Parker. You’re not just taking control away from some of the worst control freaks in the country; you’re challenging the notion of there being such a thing as control, at all.”

“Isn’t that good? Liberating them from their delusions?”

“Sometimes, our delusions are all we have. And in a place like this? They help us survive. You may glorify yourself as a liberator, boy, but most of us don’t want to be liberated.”

Peter met Pedro’s eyes unflinchingly. “Do you?”

Pedro stared at him. He was wearing a strange expression, an expression that, for the only time in their short acquaintance, seemed wholly unguarded. “I don’t know,” he said finally, quietly.

Peter sat there, stunned. Did Pedro just admit to _not knowing_ something? Was the sky falling down? Peter glanced out of the window to check.

“You should depart, Mr. Parker, before my men start spreading rumors that I’ve impregnated you.”

“That you’ve what?” Peter spluttered. “That isn’t even... That isn’t even biologically possible!”

“I suspect it is prison slang for—”

“Nope!” Peter leapt up from his seat, clapping his hands over his ears. “Not hearin’ it!”

Pedro laughed, a low rumble of sound that followed Peter on his way out.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HERE’S MORE DIALOGUE PORN COURTESY OF PEDRO CORLEONE!
> 
> THANK YOU FOR ALL YOUR KUDOS AND COMMENTS OMG I LOVE YOU ALL <3333333333333


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The shit is finally hitting the fan! And, er, will keep hitting it for quite some time? This is the slowest shit to hit the slowest fan, lol. It’ll take a while.
> 
> Please be warned that this chapter contains references to antisemitism, racism and police brutality. As a brown-skinned person, I myself have been unfairly targeted by the police, so I’m determined to explore that here.
> 
> I do think there are good cops, but even the good ones are trapped in a system of diabolical racism, a system that sometimes prevents them from serving the very communities that they have pledged to protect. If you support the blanket glamorization of the institution known as the “police” without regard to its inherent racism, then this story isn’t for you.
> 
> Other points of note in this chapter:
> 
>   * Wade Wilson is antifa af.
>   * He _will_ punch the shit out of any Nazi he encounters.
>   * Religious fundamentalism (of the Christian variety) is discussed herein.
>   * Mental illness, based on my own copious experiences thereof, is also discussed.
>   * Gabriel García Márquez is the author of _One Hundred Years of Solitude_ , the book Pedro was reading in the last chapter.
> 


* * *

 

Peter woke up to the bunk bed creaking as Wade tossed restlessly below him.

Wade was mumbling to himself, like he often did in his sleep. His unopened eyes darted around at unseen horrors, and it wasn’t until Peter lowered himself from the upper bunk and gently jostled Wade that Wade snapped awake. A sickly pallor had overcome him, but Peter simply hugged it out of Wade, like he’d taken to doing.

“What were you dreaming about?” Peter asked lightly; if he got too doom-and-gloom about it, Wade tended to just shrug it off without sharing. “Was it about the goblins with the cactus shaped like a dildo? Or was it about the bank vault that turned out to be a giant mouth that swallowed your penis?”

“Bruh,” said Wade feelingly, patting himself down like he’d been attacked during the night. “Don’t remind me. That vault swallowed my penis _and didn’t give it back_. I was traumatized as fuck. Kept cupping my crotch every five seconds for the next month. Not that I don’t always cup my crotch; it’s comforting, like I imagine cupping my own boobs would be. If I had boobs.”

Peter sighed. “Is this going to be an ‘I’m convinced there’s an alternate universe with a female version of me’ conversation? Because you’re not mistaken; as per quantum physics, there could be a female version of you.”

“See!” Wade crowed victoriously. “The science backs me up!” Wade shielded his privates with his hands. “But still, that vault? Had me cupping my crotch a _lot_. My masculinity isn’t usually so fragile.”

“And what you just dreamed of was even more traumatizing?”

“Eh.” Wade flopped his hand in a so-so gesture. “Sorta? I was having a fun sex dream about murder—you know, the kind where you’re killing an arch-villain and your dick’s so stiff it could hammer through steel?”

“No, I don’t know,” Peter said patiently, no longer horrified by the content of Wade’s dreams. It wasn’t like Wade was actively murdering people at present, so his murder dreams were relatively harmless. Besides, Wade’s brain had always been peculiar. Expecting it to manufacture normal dreams—like being late for class or showing up naked to a birthday party—just wasn’t sensible. Well, maybe the showing-up-naked part. But not the other parts.

“At least my dick isn’t stiff anymore.” Wade blinked down at his crotch in vague surprise. “It must’ve gone limp when the asshole I was killing changed into… some… furry critter? And I am _not_ into that, I mean, I’m into pretty much most kinks, and I don’t judge the furries, but I’m just not into that. And I was so close to blowing my load, too; I even had a machete in the guy’s stomach. What a waste of a good blood-letting.”

“Uh-huh,” said Peter, doing his best not to be too perturbed. Or to lose his nonexistent lunch. He had to be supportive; these were all symptoms of Wade’s unremitting, albeit often concealed, mental instability. Isolating Wade would be both pointless and cruel; it’d just leave him alone in his own head, with all the nightmares that his psyche was trying to persuade him _weren’t_ nightmares. Like these sex dreams about murder. “Is that why you’re so shell-shocked?”

“Don’t get those dreams much, recently,” Wade rambled on, as if mostly to himself. “They always fucked me up, because I was horny during them but wanted to puke after them. With you here, though? They fuck me up even more.” Wade wretched suddenly, but since yesterday’s dinner hadn’t been more than a molecule of organic goop on a plate, no actual bile was produced. “The guilt’s, like, a gazillion times guiltier. I feel like the Beast waking up next to Belle. Totally undeserving.”

Peter smiled feebly. “The Beast or Belle?”

“Don’t front. It’s the Beast that’s undeserving. I’m a turd, but I’m a self-aware turd.” Wade hugged Peter back. Briefly. “Now leggo of me, I’m gross—not just spiritually gross, but physically gross. I’m all drenched in panic sweat. Which is yucky, not sexy.”

“So what if it isn’t sexy?” Peter wasn’t whining. Of course he wasn’t. He just had a hunch that Wade required more hugs on post-nightmare days, and… okay, so did Peter. Peter craved hugs constantly, regardless of what day it was. “Am I supposed to not hug you until after the shower, which is after lunch, which is after breakfast?”

“Whoa. Put like that, it _is_ ages away. But Peter, I stink like rotten cheese. You don’t have to—”

“Yes, I do,” Peter insisted. “And you don’t stink, don’t be melodramatic. It’s only a faint odor.”

“I notice your use of the word ‘faint.’ My stench must make you wanna faint. Right?”

“Oh, give it up.” Peter squeezed Wade against him vengefully, and then asked his customary question on mornings like these. It aided Peter in assessing Wade’s condition, because Wade’s answers to this question were invariably revealing. “How’s the brain?”

“Iffy. Dotty. Screaming internally. Like that Muppet-on-a-train gif or that Van Gogh painting.”

It was Peter’s turn to blink. “What Van Gogh painting?”

“The one that looks like scrambled eggs made of piss and vomit and blood, with a screaming man drowning in the center of them.” Wade imitated a whooshing noise. “It’s like the dude’s being flushed down a toilet full of very bloody diarrhea.”

“That’s…” _A dreadfully accurate description, to the point where, were I an Art History professor, I’d be equally tempted to applaud you for your accuracy and fail you for it_. “That’s not by Van Gogh. It’s by a Norwegian painter named Edvard Munch.”

Wade extricated himself from Peter’s hug and stood up, wobbling until he grabbed the bed to balance himself. “Bet Pedro knows it’s by Munch,” he grumbled.

“Er, yes? He does? Or I think he does.” Peter scratched his nose. “What’s that got to do with it?”

“He’s a turd, too.” Wade waggled a finger at Peter forbiddingly. “Remember that. A turd dipped in gold and sparkly, shiny glitter, but still 100% pure, distilled turd.”

“When did we go from paintings to turds?”

“Augh.” Wade wretched again. “Scat. Yet another kink I’m not into. What is _up_ with the brain today?”

“It’s, um, reenacting Edvard Munch’s greatest composition?” Peter offered.

“That must be it,” Wade mumbled, like he hadn’t just offered the same explanation himself. “Fuck Munch. Except he’s too evil to deserve the joy of a fucking. _Un_ fuck him. Crap, I need a shower.”

“Like I said, you’ll only get it after lunch.”

Wade swore. “Unfuck this whole place.”

“Including me?” Peter raised an eyebrow, leaning back on the bunk seductively. It was meant to be in jest, but Wade’s eyes caught and held on the spread of Peter’s thighs, caught and held and _held_ , and Peter’s mouth went dry. He recalled showing off for Wade on this bunk, touching himself for Wade, and blushed.

“Uh,” said Wade, clearly envisioning of the opposite of the term ‘unfuck.’ Still wobbly as a colt, he tilted himself away from Peter and toward the latrine. “I’m. I’mma piss?”

“Never knew you were into golden showers, either,” Peter said jokingly, to distract himself from how sexually charged the atmosphere was.

“Ain’t my fault.” Wade retreated behind the metal partition that cordoned off the latrine, sticking up a middle finger over its frame. “Talk to the brain.”

 

* * *

 

Smokes’ cell was in B Block, and it took twenty minutes of medium-speed trekking to get there, with Pedro’s thug of the day shadowing Wade and Peter closely.

Peter was antsy about meeting Smokes, because he didn’t want it to seem like he and Wade were bullying the elderly man to extract some form of payment from him for saving his life. Preying on the weak in that fashion was unacceptable. There were protection rackets in prison just as there were outside of prison, and Peter really wasn’t comfortable with even the appearance of selling protection against the Nazis.

That protection came for free.

Pedro hadn’t been happy about that, but it wasn’t like Peter could ensure that Wade wouldn’t just go ballistic and reduce any fascist pig he encountered into a sticky, bloody smear. Wade wasn’t Peter’s obedient pooch; Peter’s influence over Wade wasn’t absolute. And it shouldn’t be. Theirs wouldn’t be much of a consensual relationship if it were.

To be honest, when it came to the Nazis, Peter wouldn’t stop Wade even if he could. He’d stop Wade from committing outright homicide, or from causing injuries that would land him in solitary, but Peter couldn’t pretend that he’d dissuade Wade from smacking some sense into a white supremacist. Especially if it’d save an innocent person’s life.

Peter’s position on violence had obviously evolved. Somewhat.

And he wasn’t looking forward to having that conversation with Pedro. Eventually, he’d have to, but Peter was just gambling on not being compelled to have that discussion until Pedro was more reliant on Peter’s talents and had more respect for Peter overall.

Otherwise, Peter would wind up dead in the library, with Pedro’s precious copy of Gabriel García Márquez’s masterpice sadly disfigured by Peter’s innards. If Pedro’s grandma killed folks with knitting needles, what did Pedro kill them with? Bookmarks?

Nah. Pedro just got his goons and his allies to do the murdering for him. He’d said as much. If outsourcing was attractive to businesses, it was only natural that it would be attractive to the mafia, which was a type of business.

Shit. Peter was beginning to think like a criminal. Just how long could he live in the swamp before transforming into a swamp creature? Peter was becoming the ethical equivalent of Shrek.

Wait, did that make Wade Fiona? Wade was more like Donkey. No offense to Wade. Or Donkey.

With Pedro’s minion stalking them _just_ out of hearing distance, Wade and Peter could converse in relative peace.

“What do you reckon Pedro’s up to?” Wade said for about the millionth time. He was anxious about Pedro’s motivations, which was understandable, given that seven men had been executed under Pedro’s orders in the past year. “Will he back you?”

“He should?” Peter grimaced. “It’s like he’s training me to be a prison boss. He volunteered to pay me for my information on Project Rebirth, even though I hadn’t asked to be paid. He was teaching me how it’s done.”

Wade chewed on his thumb. “So he’s taking you under his wing.”

“Yeah, a falcon’s wing. If it struck his fancy, he could capture me in his wickedly curved talons and pluck my head off with his beak.” When Wade scowled, Peter hastened to add: “But I need to get him on board with resisting Project Rebirth. Only then will the other leaders take me seriously. If Pedro Corleone, strategic genius, draws the conclusion that there’s something wrong with it, there must definitely be something very, very wrong with it. Possibly even more wrong than they can comprehend.”

Before Wade could do more than scowl some more, they were at Smokes’ cell. They’d attempted visiting Smokes in the infirmary while he was recovering, but had been banned on account of Smokes’ condition being unstable. This was Smokes’ first day back in his cell after his condition had improved sufficiently for him to be released back into the population. So Peter and Wade were visiting Smokes in his cell, and if anyone entertained the delusion that it was a form of extortion, then Wade would just have to set them right. By force, if need be.

There were only three hours before the cells would be locked up again for the night. That didn’t give them much time. Peter hovered at the entrance to Smokes’ cell and coughed.

“Er, hullo?” Peter rapped on the doorjamb. “Anybody home?”

“Yes, we’re in.” A tall, lanky young man in a pair of taped-up spectacles appeared in the doorway. Those spectacles must’ve been punched off his face, because his left cheekbone was bruised, the bruise barely visible beneath his dark skin but still very much there. It couldn’t have been Smokes who did that. “You’re the guys who saved Smokes, aren’t you? C’mon in. He’s passed out, because they gave him a dose of painkillers before discharging him from the infirmary, but you can pop in and see how he is.”

Peter edged cautiously into the cell with Wade accompanying him. There Smokes was, lying unconscious on the lower bunk, his head bandaged up and ghastly, purplish, half-healed stitches all over him. His eyelids were blue-veined and wrinkled, and there was such an exhausted fragility to him that Peter twinged to see it. It was similar to Aunt May’s increasing fragility as age overtook her—a sort of transparency, as if she were in the process of fading away.

“Fuck.” Wade hissed at the sight of Smokes’ stitches. “He still resembles mincemeat. Should he even be out here? He doesn’t look like he should be out of the infirmary.”

“They had to vacate his bed to take in an inmate with a stabbing,” said Smokes’ cellmate. “Smokes wasn’t an emergency patient after the worst of his head-wounds healed, so he got booted out. You know how few beds there are in the infirmary. For a maximum security facility, Grantham doesn’t get much funding, does it?” He extended his hand to Peter for a handshake, and then to Wade. “I’m Mike. Mike Baines.”

“Hey, Mike,” Wade greeted him brightly. “What’re you in for?”

“Don’t answer him,” Peter said urgently, just in case Mike was in for a crime Wade had an aversion to. A crime Wade might punish him for.

But Mike just sat down beside Smokes, gingerly, so as to not disturb him. Mike’s carefulness with Smokes immediately told Peter that Mike was a decent man.

“I’m not in for any crime. I was framed. Same as you, probably,” Mike said to Peter. “Aren’t you just about my age?”

“I’m nineteen.”

“Younger than me, then. I’m twenty.” Mike laid a hand atop Smokes’. “A year ago, I was working on my architecture degree. Had a scholarship, a girlfriend, and a mom who was so proud of me she even bragged about me to random passengers on her daily commute.”

Peter mourned for Mike’s loss. He knew this story, even though it wasn’t his, even though he’d never heard it. He _knew_ where it was going, because it ended here, in prison. “Mike…”

“And then somebody called the cops on me while I was studying in Central Park.”

“Just for studying?”

Mike quirked a rueful smile. “Just for studying. I tried to explain to them that I was just sitting there with my boring-as-hell textbooks, but they wouldn’t listen. I _must_ be up to some sneaky misdemeanor, right? Given the color of my skin? So they wrestled me to the ground and kicked me. Over and over.”

Wade’s fists curled reflexively, as if he could go back in time and stop what had happened to Mike. Peter steadied Wade with a hand on his arm.

If Mike saw their interchange, he didn’t let on. “Basically, I got my ass beat because I was black. And I got thrown in jail because they didn’t expect me to beat _back_.” Mike pushed his glasses up slightly. “Specifically, the cops didn’t expect me to beat back.”

“B-But…” Peter floundered. “But that’s self-defense, isn’t it? Self-defense against police brutality?”

“Would any jury buy that?” Mike’s laugh was harsh, but it petered off when he looked down at Smokes. His eyes softened. “Guy’s old as hell. He doesn’t deserve what gets dealt to him on a daily basis. Just like I didn’t deserve what got dealt to me by the cops. But I can’t do shit about Smokes’ situation, because my boss hasn’t authorized me to. Maybe he will, though. He authorizes corrections all the time.”

“C-corrections?” Peter asked. “And who’s your boss?”

“He’s _the_ boss. The only other boss as powerful as Corleone.”

“The Reverend.” It wasn’t that difficult for Peter to infer, considering the massive congregation that gathered around the priest at mealtimes and in the exercise yard. But the Reverend was a religious extremist, and Mike didn’t seem like extremist material. “That’s the Reverend, isn’t it?”

“You got it. And when he orders corrections… It’s when an inmate does something sinful. The Reverend corrects them.”

“With violence,” Wade added. “Now that’s my _jam_.”

Peter frowned at him, and then at Mike. “Who decides what’s a sin?”

“God does.”

“Mike,” said Peter in exasperation, “religious fundamentalism is a sucky system anywhere in the world, but in a tinderbox like prison? It’s gotta be even more volatile. Like, infinitely more volatile.”

“We’re volatile? You guys bashed a Nazi in the head so badly he nearly died. Didn’t you make a moral judgment when you did that?”

“Okay, firstly?” Peter had to clarify this. “I didn’t do any hitting. Wade was the, uh, hitter. And secondly, yes, there was a moral judgment, but it wasn’t religiously motivated.”

“So what if it is?” Mike balled his hands stubbornly, glowering down at them. “Because of the Reverend, the man who sexually assaulted me was permanently hospitalized and sent out of prison. The Reverend’s why the latest pedophile to be incarcerated in Grantham was dead within a week. The Reverend’s why the last man who said he’d rape one of us had his tongue cut out.”

Wade was nodding along, an unholy light in his eyes. The they-got-what-they-deserved light. Peter hated it.

“So, what, the Reverend calls the shots? I thought it was God.”

“The Reverend only educates us about God’s will,” Mike said with palpable doubt, as if parroting a spiel he didn’t entirely subscribe to. “All we do is obey the edicts of the Bible.”

“Including the edicts against homosexuality, worshiping other gods, eating shrimp and wearing mixed fabrics?” Peter leaned forward. “Does the Reverend encourage attacks on, say, Muslims? Or men in same-sex relationships?”

“No. The Reverend says that our Muslim brothers are also worshipers of the true and rightful God, but they are merely confused about which path to take to God. We aren’t allowed to kill them, but we are supposed to convert them.” Mike’s eyes flitted timidly between Peter and Wade. “H-he says the same of homosexuals. They’re just confused.”

“Wonderful,” Peter muttered. “So generous. And what if they don’t convert?”

“The Reverend says they will,” Mike said uneasily. “Because God will show them the truth.”

“All right, even I’m getting freaked out by this,” said Wade. “I’m all for pummeling the shit outta pedophiles and rapists, but all this cultish, holier-than-though bullshit is giving me the hives. Sorry.”

Mike hunched over, uncertainty writ plain on his features. “The Reverend’s a bit too religious for me, I admit, but beggars can’t be choosers. And I do owe him. If he hadn’t sheltered me, I’d be a professional prison bitch by now.”

Peter opened his mouth to protest, but Mike retorted angrily before Peter could even speak.

“Look, I had to ally myself with _some_ group. Not all of us can secure undefeatable sugar daddies.”

Peter flinched.

“Sorry,” Mike apologized. “I… Sorry. You didn’t deserve that. Nobody does.”

“I’m luckier than many.” Peter glanced sideways at Wade, who’d gone as still as a pillar. “I know that. And I’m thankful for that. But I’m… I’m still so, so sorry for all that’s happened to you. _You_ didn’t deserve any of that.”

Mike’s visage twisted and untwisted, like he was in pain. He bowed protectively over Smokes, and Peter realized how important Smokes must be to Mike, how crucial Smokes’ calming presence must be to Mike’s emotional health. “It’s not for you to be sorry about. You didn’t send me to prison.”

“No,” said Peter. “No, but…” He reached under his shirt and wiggled the phone out of its cloth binding. He’d loosened the cloth marginally, so he wouldn’t have to strip his shirt off to extract the phone. It wasn’t the smartest idea to strip in this joint. “You can, er. Would you like to… talk? To your family?”

“What for?” Mike ran his fingers over his face, unfamiliarly, as if it were a stranger’s. “No. I… I should stay out of their lives. My mom needs to forget she has a son. My girlfriend’s better off with someone else. And my degree—who the fuck cares about my degree? It’s not like my scholarship will be waiting for me when I’m released as a middle-aged man. The cops stole my life, Peter, and a chat over the phone isn’t going to give it back.”

It hit Peter harder than he was prepared for. He gazed down at the phone, lost, hurting because Mike was hurting and Peter couldn’t _do_ anything about it. Mike was just struggling to survive in the shark-tank, same as Peter was. Except that, unlike Peter, Mike didn’t have his very own shark to watch out for him. Or two sharks, counting Pedro.

Was the Reverend a shark, too? He claimed to be a man of faith, but could a man of faith achieve and maintain sovereignty within the prison like the Reverend had? Was religion just a sham for him, a sham to recruit and retain supporters? Or did he actually believe that tripe about gays and Muslims?

Peter wasn’t sure which was more morally reprehensible.

But did it even matter? In practical terms, what the Reverend was doing had _some_ merit if it gave sanctuary to unsheltered inmates like Mike. It didn’t have the qualities of a protection racket. Mike wasn’t forking over money, or any tangible substance.

All Mike was forking out was his loyalty.

Shit.

It _was_ a racket, wasn’t it? Be in the club, or find your own means of living outside of it?

Still, it was preferable to what Pedro was doing; Pedro was running his group for money, whereas the Reverend was running his group for the “common good”—or what he deemed to be the common good. Peter wasn’t well-versed in the Reverend’s personal philosophy, but there was no denying that it arose from a nobler rationale than Pedro’s murky undertakings.

“Anyhow,” Wade said to Mike, “what’s up with your glasses?”

Mike adjusted them; the thick lenses gleamed. “I can’t see without them.”

Peter chuckled. “Wade’s asking why there’s tape holding your specs together.”

“Oh, that? Just a li’l run-in with some Nazis, a reminder that they’re coming for Smokes as soon as he steps out of his cell, and that they won’t stop until he and the eleven other Jewish men in this prison are hanged.”

Peter blanched. “Hanged?”

“Lynchings, I guess. Going back to their roots.” Bitterness soured Mike’s expression, along with a bleak, uncaring despair. Or not precisely uncaring; it was as though Mike accepted that his caring would accomplish nothing. “They suggested lynching me, too, when they were done with the Jews. They said the pipes in the laundry steam-room were perfect to hang people from. Those pipes are sturdy. And high enough off the floor.”

Peter reeled. He fell back, fetching up against the wall that was Wade. A motionless Wade. Peter whirled around to look at him, to share his revulsion at what they’d just heard, but he found that Wade wasn’t even there—it was as if his Wade-ness had been erased, replaced by a terrifying, stony emptiness.

“When,” Wade growled, like death personified.

Mike recoiled. “Wh-What?”

“When did they say they would start killing the rest.” There were no question-marks in Wade’s questions. “Before or after they killed Smokes.”

“After. Smokes… Smokes would be the first.”

“That could be today.”

“Theoretically? Anytime Smokes leaves this cell. And he’ll have to leave for dinner, or he won’t get any. He can’t just rot in here and starve forever.”

“He won’t have to skip dinner. Not if I have a say in it.”

“Wade?” A spike of anxiety pierced Peter’s heart. Wade couldn’t mean to… Could he…? Pedro had warned them that he wouldn’t support Wade and Peter in any anti-Nazi activity, so if Wade instigated an epic beatdown with witnesses present, he could go to solitary.

Mike was just as skeptical. “What’ll you do, man, take down all two dozen of them? That’s impossible. Even if you did, the guards would catch you before you got through them all.”

“The guards won’t be there.” Wade’s tone was flat, emotionless, dead. He cracked his knuckles. “Nobody will summon them. Because you and half of your pals from the Reverend’s cute little coterie will distract them, while the other half will be there to testify that whatever happens in the boiler room, I’m not accountable for it. Hell, maybe the Nazis had themselves a bar fight. They can’t accuse me of beating them up if they can’t even prove I was there.”

Mike sat up slowly. A grudging, unwilling hope flickered in his eyes. “You… You’ll deal with them? For me and for Smokes?”

“For you, and for those thirteen men.”

Peter couldn’t fault Wade’s motives, but… “Wade, _no_. Are you—are you going to kill—”

“Pete.” Wade was vibrating with tension, his fists still clenched. He’d begun pacing in the cell, caged and feral, his eyes fixed on the distance, like he could already see the carnage unfolding before him. “Don’t interfere.”

“Interfere…?” How could it be interfering? Peter and Wade were in this together; they were in everything together. “Are you kidding?”

“Some pests don’t go away until they’re eliminated,” Wade said, as implacable as a rock. “They only breed, like termites, until they’re exterminated.”

“Oh, so you’re in the pest extermination industry, now? What’s your company’s name, Bugs-Be-Gone?”

“The Nazis aren’t just pests,” Mike interjected. “They’re murderers.”

“Not anymore.” Wade jabbed a thumb at Mike. “Smokes is out anyway, so me ’n’ Peter are going back to our cell. In the meantime, you’re gonna leave Smokes here, behind the locked door, and you’re gonna go and get a bunch of your friends. Ask the Reverend’s permission if you have to, but be quick about it. Get them to stage a distraction away from the boiler room. That’s where the Nazis will be, because that’s where they always are. Or were.” Wade’s eyes narrowed. “Until now.”

“You can’t do this.” Peter was gripped by an awful dread. “Wade. You can’t. If it doesn’t go according to plan, then what’ll you do? And how are you going to fight against all those skinheads? They’ll kill you, Wade. _They’ll_ exterminate _you_.”

“They won’t.” Wade said it with an easy, careless dominance. There was an inevitability to him, the inevitability of a bomb; it was like there was a clock ticking inside him, counting down to a detonation. “There’s a reason my kill-count is the highest in the country.”

“That isn’t something you should be boasting about,” Peter said half-hysterically, feeling the situation slipping away from him. It was all spiraling into chaos too fast for him to cope with.

“Peter. Those assholes wouldn’t be after Smokes and the other Jewish guys if I hadn’t intervened. They wouldn’t be so eager to make a statement to counteract mine. They don’t just wanna kill these poor bastards for the sake of killing ’em—they wanna kill them as a message to _me_.”

“Wade—”

“I can’t let anybody die because of me. This is my responsibility. It’s on me.”

Peter… Peter couldn’t object to that. He’d do the same if it was his fault another human being was at risk. “You’d do it even if it wasn’t your responsibility. You don’t fool me.” A cold hollowness rang within Peter, like the hollowness of an unoccupied grave. “But what if the Reverend refuses your help and doesn’t send witnesses to corroborate your innocence?”

“He will.” Mike swallowed nervously. “He’s against the Nazis, too. He’ll back you on this. I can guarantee that.”

“Then we’re leaving,” said Wade. “Mike, I’ll expect your buddies to meet me in the boiler room. They don’t hafta participate in the thrashing; I just need witnesses. And a set of spare clothes to get into afterward, because my current clothes will be ruined. You’ll have to smuggle my bloodstained uniform away.” Wade banged the door of the cell open. It almost got torn off its hinges; on the bunk, Smokes stirred before sinking back into his sedative-induced sleep. “Peter. Follow me.”

Peter had never heard Wade _command_ him before. Not like that. “I’ll drop by to see Smokes tomorrow,” Peter said to Mike, hastily. “Provided today’s, um, quest goes off without a hitch. I’d like to talk to Smokes once he’s up and about.”

“He’d like to talk to you and Deadpool, too,” Mike replied. “He was mumbling about it before the drugs got to him and he keeled over.”

Peter scampered after Wade as Wade exited the cell. Even Wade’s bearing was different; he had the unbending, unstoppable stride of a man on a mission. It was as if Peter wasn’t even there; Wade was outpacing Peter easily, preoccupied with his own thoughts. When they returned to their cell, Wade resumed pacing.

Pedro’s guard had stationed himself outside, and would likely linger there after Wade departed for the boiler room. But Peter wouldn’t feel safe—not when Wade would be fighting, what, twenty-four adversaries? Twenty-five?

“Wade. Wade, don’t do this.”

“I will,” Wade snarled. “I’ll fucking destroy them.”

Peter sank onto their only chair. He stared vacantly at the cards on the table; the nine of spades was peeking out from under the four of clubs. “And how will you hide the fact that it’s you destroying them? Even if you change your uniform, you’ll have blood all over your hands. Witnesses contradicting the victims’ testimonies won’t mean a damn thing if the guards see you on your way back here and you’ve got blood on you.”

“I can plan just fine, Petey. I used to be a professional assassin. I know all about planning ops.”

“This isn’t an op.”

“Isn’t it?” Wade said, casually admitting that he was about to commit a premeditated crime. “I won’t have any blood on me. It’s the boiler room. There’ll be plenty of water to wash my hands in.”

“Yeah, _boiling water_. Because it’s the _boiler room_.”

“I’ll be fighting a baseball team of Nazis, and you’re worried about me getting scalded?”

“I have to be worried about you,” Peter argued, “because you certainly aren’t! A third-degree burn isn’t just a scalding, Wade!”

For a moment, it seemed as though Wade would falter, as if the person Wade truly was would emerge from behind the inhuman mask that Wade’s face had become—but no, that person disappeared before he ever surfaced. “It’s not me you should be worrying out, Peter. It’s them.”

Peter shut his eyes in defeat. So he couldn’t keep Wade from doing this. It had been bound to happen someday; Wade had a functional moral compass but an unfortunately dysfunctional method of applying that moral compass, and it had been unavoidable that they would have a disagreement about this.

Then there were the discrepancies that Peter had detected in Mike’s account, discrepancies that were resolving themselves into a more sinister pattern. They wouldn’t discourage Wade, but Peter had to divulge his insights to Wade nonetheless—insights Peter wouldn’t even have had if Pedro hadn’t been subtly tutoring him, teaching Peter to analyze every scenario in terms of control—who was winning it, and who was losing it.

“This could be a trap,” Peter said to Wade’s back, because Wade wasn’t looking at him; perhaps Wade couldn’t look at him and still go through with this. “Or a test. The Reverend should be able to take care of this peril to one of his own, _on_ his own. He has enough foot-soldiers to do his bidding. Why does he need you? Why would Mike portray himself as helpless after pointing out that he wasn’t, because the Reverend was protecting him? Why would the Reverend’s protection suddenly have evaporated? What if… What if the Reverend instructed him to win your sympathy, to see how you’d react to his plight?”

“And?” Wade sounded unconcerned. “Why would he do that?”

“Maybe the Reverend wants to see how far you’re willing to go for what you think is right. Maybe he wants to see how like him you are.”

“Maybe,” Wade said quietly, “I’m more like him than he knows.”

_No. No, you’re not._

Wade checked the clock. “I’m heading off. By the time I get to the boiler room, Mike should’ve arrived with his friends.”

“And if he hasn’t?”

“I’ll just have to start the party without him.”

_Come back to me_ , Peter wanted to say, but didn’t. It might make Wade hesitate, and at this juncture, hesitation could cost Wade his life. So Peter kept a lid on his apprehension even as Wade opened the door, even as Wade crossed the threshold. It was as if there were a string that tied them together, and it stretched thinner and thinner with every step Wade took, threatening to snap. _Let this not be our goodbye._

Rationally, Peter knew that Wade was correct in his estimation of the odds; Wade wouldn’t be the most feared prisoner at Grantham if he wasn’t capable of tackling multiple opponents, nor would it have taken several armed squads to bring him down prior to his arrest.

Wade could handle this. The problem was what would happen if he did. What would it do to Wade, to unleash what he’d been repressing ever since he’d met Peter? Would Wade ever come back from that? Would Peter even recognize him if he did?

Before Wade left, Peter finally found the words he _could_ say; they forced themselves out of him, ugly and unwieldy. “Promise me you won’t kill anyone.”

Wade jerked to a halt.

Peter’s voice broke. “ _Promise me_.”

“That’s all I can promise,” Wade said, without turning around, and then he was gone.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LOL I FIGURED I WAS EVIL BEFORE BUT NOW I _KNOW_ I AM
> 
> MY APOLOGIES FOR THE CLIFFHANGER AND I PROMISE I’LL UPDATE IN THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO SUFFER FOR LONG??
> 
> I LOVE YOU ALL, YOUR BEAUTIFUL COMMENTS KEEP ME GOING THROUGH ALL THE ANGST <3


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I said I wouldn’t leave you hanging, and I haven’t! Here’s your update a mere two days after the cliffhanger!
> 
> The full details of what went down in the boiler room won’t be disclosed until the next chapter, because in this one, Wade is too busy being scary and sexy and mysterious.
> 
> You might think an hour isn’t long enough for Wade to beat up twenty-five men and walk back to his cell, but trust me, fights can go very, very fast. Fights with Deadpool? Go even faster. I can’t imagine it taking more than twenty to thirty minutes, max, for Deadpool to thoroughly trounce a bunch of untrained Nazis who’re too hopped up on testosterone and hatred to swing a punch on-target.
> 
> Forgive me for the external movie reference, but I envision it going a lot like [this scene](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tukQDg22o9M) in which Harry Hart, a highly trained agent, takes down a bunch of civilian thugs in a matter of minutes.
> 
> …Oh, wonderful, now I’m turned on. I shouldn’t have watched that scene again. Damn it.

* * *

 

The next hour was the worst hour Peter had ever endured, and he’d been through some pretty crappy hours. He couldn’t move from his chair. He couldn’t stand up. He couldn’t even budge. It was as if he was frozen until Wade got back. A subcutaneous winter had frosted his veins with ice, freezing him and paralyzing him, and he was _cold_. Literally, physically cold. Wade had taken all the warmth in the world with him when he’d left.

Peter had no clue what was happening in the boiler room. He had no clue whether Wade had won, or whether he’d been beaten to death. Implausible as it was, the prospect was devastating. Peter was haunted by the image of Wade face-down in a pool of red, unmoving, trampled and abandoned in the boiler room.

If Wade wasn’t back soon, Peter would go searching for him. Screw the plan. Screw his own survival. Pedro’s appointed guard wouldn’t accompany him into an altercation with the Nazis, given that Pedro had stated his group wouldn’t get involved, but so what? What would Peter’s miserable existence be worth without Wade?

Memory after memory of Wade assailed Peter—Wade chasing peas around on his plate at lunch and grousing about how he was Mulder and the peas were little green men; Wade wordlessly shielding Peter from view in the showers; Wade looking at Peter as if Peter was everything to him. Everything.

Peter couldn’t tolerate a single second in this hellhole without Wade to talk to him, love him, be with him. Wade was the only reason—the only—

The door creaked ajar.

Peter sprang up, and the chair fell with a clatter.

Would it be Wade? Or would it be Mike, delivering a terrible message? Or the guards, informing Peter that his cellmate had been murdered and that he’d been reassigned to a new cell?

Peter would break. Without Wade, there was nothing for Peter in prison. Absolutely nothing.

And then Wade walked into their cell.

Peter all but crumpled to the floor. A sob tore out of him, and he clutched his chest, overcome by a joy so complete that it bordered on agony.

Wade was back. Wade was _home_.

Peter yearned to run into his embrace, yearned to be held and cosseted and reassured. But he hadn’t tottered forward more than a few steps before he realized that the man he was going to only bore a superficial resemblance to Wade. That man had Wade’s figure, Wade’s form, but the soul that looked out from behind his eyes was… different.

Peter stopped in his tracks. His stomach plummeted.

Wade stood there, watching him. It was like being watched by a stranger, by a denizen of another realm—a realm of shadows that that Wade had ventured into, only to be possessed by them. Those shadows swirled inside him, infiltrating him and giving him a cruel, bestial cast.

This wasn’t Peter’s Wade—or if it was, then he was hidden far beneath all that cruelty, a cruelty that could only be the product of sheer, unadulterated fury, of a berserker’s rage. Still, Peter was overwhelmingly relieved to see that Wade was uninjured. What was disturbing was that Peter’s relief was warring with a peculiar unease, an unease he’d never experienced with Wade before.

Some vestige of self-preservation made Peter remain where he was; this version of Wade didn’t appear to be particularly receptive to affection. Moreover, Peter got the distinct impression that if he so much as shifted, Wade would follow his movements like a hawk. This Wade was primed to attack, and while Peter had no doubt that Wade would never harm him, it just seemed… unwise… to tempt fate. Because, even if Wade didn’t unleash himself on Peter, he might go out there and unleash himself on everyone else.

“You… You aren’t scalded.” Peter gestured awkwardly at Wade’s hands. He longed to hold them, cradle them, check that every callus and scar was unchanged. But, again, he restrained himself. He had to, until Wade cooled off and was restored to his former self.

“No,” said Wade calmly, as if he hadn’t just butchered two dozen men—because Peter was suddenly, spine-chillingly sure that he had. “I didn’t wash my hands directly. I soaked one of the bedsheets being laundered there in the boiling water and wiped myself clean. Mike smuggled the sheet away to dispose of it.”

“Great, because otherwise, your parboiled paws would be a dead giveaway.” Peter winced. “No emphasis whatsoever on dead.”

Wade continued watching Peter. Uncharacteristically, he didn’t ask if Peter was all right, and Peter didn’t ask if Wade had defeated his opponents, because he clearly had. It was equally obvious that Mike had lived up to his promise of bringing along a spare uniform, because Wade’s clothes were spotless.

Wade had succeeded. At what price, Peter couldn’t begin to calculate.

Did calculations even have a place in this situation? Peter couldn’t… He couldn’t stay away from Wade much longer. It was unnatural. Every atom in him craved for Wade, even if the Wade he’d fallen in love with was lost somewhere in the depths of this interloper. Peter was confident he would get his Wade back, if only he kissed Wade, if only he reminded Wade of what they had.

But he couldn’t do that. Not yet. Not unless he _knew_.

The question bubbled up and out of Peter like acid, corrosive and caustic, eating into him. “Did you kill?”

For the first time since Wade’s return, an actual emotion flitted across his pitiless countenance, too swiftly for Peter to identify. “No.”

“Did you want to kill?”

A tremor ran through Wade, like the tremor before an earthquake. “Yes.”

“But…” Peter gulped. “But you didn’t.”

“Perhaps I should have killed them. It would’ve been more merciful.” Wade approached Peter on soundless feet, as stealthily as if he was still on a mission, stealing behind a victim before slitting his carotid artery. “Would you like to hear what else I did?”

“No,” Peter whispered. It was only now that Peter caught a whiff of the scent emanating from Wade—a faint, coppery scent. That… that was blood, wasn’t it? Peter could smell blood on Wade, even though there wasn’t a stain anywhere on him, because Wade must’ve been just that thorough with the cleanup. Just that professionally thorough. “No. Don’t…”

“Don’t what, Peter? Don’t speak the truth? You should know the man you’re sleeping with. Living with. You ought to know.”

“I do. I do know you.”

“Do you?” Wade prowled toward Peter, his gait rolling like a tiger’s, purposeful and intent. There was no sympathy, no humanity in his expression—it was avid and vacant, like an animal’s.

Peter shrank back.

“Peter.” Wade’s voice was low and deadly, and he was radiating a menace, a danger that Peter hadn’t seen in months. “I’m not a nice guy. I never have been. You haven’t seen what I do, have you? What got me in here? You’ve never seen me kill. You’ve never seen me _shudder_ when hot blood splatters my face, because it feels just that fucking good.”

Peter gasped. Wade was so close, all heat and muscle and tightly leashed power, looming and focused, every part of him a threat. In their dingy cell, Wade’s knife-like eyes glinted with a hunger utterly unlike what Peter was accustomed to—not lust, not ardor, not devotion. This was a blood-hunger, a death-fever, a barely-contained wildfire on the brink of spreading unchecked and consuming all in its path.

Peter’s pulse kicked up, sweat prickling under his shirt. Wade had never been like this near him. Not where Peter could see. Yes, Wade had erupted into brutality on occasion, but it was always a spontaneous reaction to an external stimulus, prompted by his environment. But this? This wasn’t just an automatic reflex. This was Wade thirsting for violence, actively seeking it out. Creating it. Coveting it. His face bore the stark madness of a pyromaniac, standing in front of a church with a flint, itching to set it all ablaze.

It was the face of an addict.

The face of a killer.

It should’ve terrified Peter, but instead it made some sleeping instinct in him _jolt_ to wakefulness—the furtive instinct of prey, a fight-or-flight response rapidly morphing into something else. The splintering shock of it cracked open a fissure deep within Peter, a fissure of some molten and searing substance, primitive and vulnerable and heretofore unknown.

“I… I can’t keep holding myself back.” Wade’s words were almost beseeching, a combination of the dark, cajoling tones of a seducer and the trembling prayers of a supplicant. “I’m a predator, Peter. I have to _hunt_. There has to be meat in my fangs, flesh on my claws. I can’t just—I can’t just not be myself. I love you, but I can’t tame myself for you. I can’t. And I shouldn’t.”

Peter’s heart was hammering. Maybe it was wrong, and weird, but he was reacting to Wade in ways he’d never expected. He thrummed with a secret, guilty anticipation, fear and desire intermingling in him until he couldn’t tell them apart. The shrinking distance between him and Wade had the crackling electricity of the sky before a storm, the gathering pressure before a hurricane, oppressive and unbearably intense.

The air seemed to burn as it entered Peter’s lungs. He was parched, a piece of flash-paper on the verge of bursting into flame. Every exposed inch of his skin felt raw and untouched, and an incredulous frisson wracked through him, revealing itself in a quiver.

Wade’s eyes darkened.

“You gotta stop me, Pete,” Wade murmured, swaying closer drunkenly, his gaze fixed on Peter’s mouth. “You gotta stop me…”

Peter’s lips parted.

Wade drew in an unsteady breath.

Peter was shaking, and Wade was getting nearer and nearer, an intolerable tenderness mixing with the torment that twisted his features—his dear, beloved features, but now they looked so _foreign_ , so alien, so starved. There was despair in them, and a sort of misery, but also the relief of surrender—of surrendering to one’s demons.

And Peter couldn’t let Wade feel like that. He just couldn’t. He couldn’t leave Wade alone in that abyss, scrabbling against the blackness and slowly, inevitably becoming it. This was a side of Wade that Peter had never encountered, but it was a side of the man he loved, nonetheless. He wasn’t about to turn away from it. No matter how frightening it was.

So he reached up to Wade’s face, his fingertips sliding feather-light over Wade’s jaw, finding Wade’s mouth and tracing it. Wade shivered, and when Peter gently pulled him down for a kiss, Wade went with him.

The moment their mouths met, it was as if they ignited. The electricity from before flared to life between them, sparking and leaping, the dazzling fusion of two circuits merging. Wade moaned, a stunned, helpless noise, and Peter surged _up_ , meeting Wade more than halfway, rising on his toes to kiss Wade so forcefully that Wade stumbled back under his weight.

But Wade quickly regained his footing. He enveloped Peter in his arms, his biceps solid and unyielding, and lifted Peter effortlessly.

Peter groaned. He wrapped his legs around Wade’s waist and _rutted_ , harder than he could ever remember being. His mind was blank, arid, filled with nothing but a devouring greed. His teeth dug into Wade’s lower lip and his fingernails scoured Wade’s back. He was trapped in a strange, savage delirium, with Wade’s tongue fucking his mouth and Wade’s cock jutting out beneath his ass, god, it was huge, and Peter wanted—

They staggered back against the door, Peter’s skull only just avoiding collision with it when Wade’s hand rose up to cup his head, not so much to protect Peter but to tangle in Peter’s hair, yanking it so that Peter had to hiss and arch his neck, baring his throat, silently begging for Wade to bite him there, bruise him, mark him.

But Wade only tore himself away and lurched backward. He was panting, his eyes wide and horrified, his erection tenting his trousers. “Peter,” he rasped, hoarse and shattered. He squeezed his eyes shut. “ _Peter_. I’m sorry.”

Peter’s body sang like a plucked chord, vibrating with urgency. He had to come so badly that he couldn’t think straight. His knees shook. His hips twitched upward, desperate for contact, and he ground the heel of his palm viciously against his clothed dick, half-punishment and half-tease. But he had to let go before he came right there, on the spot, flooding his pants.

He wished he could. Oh, how he wished. But he had to get back to his senses. Wade needed him.

“Don’t,” Peter said harshly, breathlessly. “Don’t ever apologize for touching me. For _wanting_ me. Not ever.”

“Even though I’m a monster?”

“You’re not a monster.”

“No,” Wade said sarcastically, hatefully. “Just monstrous.”

“Even if you’re monstrous, you’re still not a monster. It’s a behavior. It’s not who you are.” Peter struggled to compose himself. His groin throbbed; he did his best to disregard it. “There’s a difference.”

“Is there? I… I was too rough with you. I could’ve hurt you. I almost bit you.”

“Wade, leaving hickeys on people is perfectly normal.”

“Not when you’re thinking about killing _other_ people while you’re doing it.”

“Okay.” What could Peter even say to that? “Fair point.”

“That’s not… That’s not what it should ever be about. Not with you. You deserve better. Heck, anyone would deserve better than being terrorized by a—”

“I’m not terrorized, Wade. Do I seem terrorized to you?”

Wade released a shaky exhalation. “You should be. And I should be ashamed of kissing you when I had those thoughts in my head, thoughts of rending and maiming and killing. I dirtied you with… with…”

“I’m not a handkerchief, Wade. You can’t dirty me. It’s not like you stabbed somebody on top of me and let their corpse bleed onto me. All your mind did was wander—”

“ _Wander?_ ” Wade said disbelievingly. “That wasn’t wandering, Peter, that was me taking a very deliberate walk on the dark side.”

“Only as deliberate as the actions of an addict. You… You can conquer this, Wade. You’re strong enough to not allow this temptation to send you back into hell.”

“Maybe I belong in hell.”

“If you do,” Peter straightened his shoulders and met Wade’s eyes squarely, “then so do I. Because I belong with you. And I’ll go with you into hell if I have to.”

“That’s not what you’ll be saying when you’re frying to a crisp.”

“Hey, I like fried stuff. I’ve been daydreaming about KFC ever since I got jailed. Man, that potato-and-gravy…”

Wade laughed. It was a broken laugh, jagged and sharp, but a laugh nonetheless. “I bet the inmates fantasize about KFC as much as they do about sex. Possibly more.”

“Exactly. So don’t cook up all that drama in your head. Just cuddle with me.” Peter dropped onto their bunk with a bounce, lying down and smoothing the mattress beside him. “C’mere, you scary beastie, you. Lemme pet you until we both fall asleep.”

Wade hesitated. “Not heavy petting, I hope?”

“Nah. Don’t wanna make my case of blue balls any worse. It’s practically a medical emergency by now. You’re such a mean bastard.”

“So I’ve been told.” Wade paused. “Not in the context of orgasms, though.”

“Honestly. Making out with you is like downing eight bottles of Viagra pills and winding up with an erection that lasts five hundred hours.”

Wade choked on a chortle. “That sounds serious.”

“It’s catastrophic. My dick is threatening a hostile takeover.”

“What, like Walmart?”

Peter blew Wade a raspberry. “Don’t procrastinate and get over here. We’ll just ignore our boners. Like we always do.” Peter huffed. “Wow, our marital life is so exciting. It’s like we’re priests sworn to abstinence, torturing ourselves with our own celibacy.”

Wade cautiously joined Peter on the bunk. “Kinky.”

“Figured you’d say that.” Peter hugged Wade to him, mumbling into Wade’s collarbone. “Picture that, would you? Me in a priest’s robe, all humble and shy, confessing to my dirty, dirty sins and asking for absolution…”

“Pete. Aren’t we supposed to be _ignoring_ our erections?”

“You’re right. I should pipe down. If I keep going, our dicks will get hard enough to replace construction beams. And what’ll we do then? We won’t able to use them ever again without, like, demolishing a whole building. And people live in buildings, Wade. Innocent people. Entire families. How could we boot them out onto the roadside? So what if we need to get our rocks off? Could it justify making hundreds of families homeless?”

“How did your sexual frustration turn into a housing crisis?”

“I dunno, dude. I’m free-associating. It’s therapeutic.”

“No wonder you need therapy after being mauled by me.”

Peter smacked Wade with the pillow. Given that it had the density of concrete, it was quite the smack. “Don’t be a doofus. Kiss me.”

Wade kissed him on the forehead, carefully and reluctantly.

“You just kissed me like a distant grand-aunt who doesn’t love me but has no heirs and therefore no choice but to leave me her estate.”

“Would you quit it with the housing references?”

“Bro, I’m in jail. All I can think about is housing. Adequate housing. Preferably with windows that can open. And functional air-conditioning. And a garden. A summer garden would be awesome.” Peter contemplated it wistfully. “Mostly because you’d look sexy mowing the lawn, shirtless and in board shorts.”

“Why will I be doing the mowing?”

“Because I’ll be indoors with the A/C on, feet up on our coffee table and sipping a Mai Tai.”

“So you don’t believe in the equal division of labor.”

“Who said I won’t be working? I’ll spend all night working myself on your—”

“Peter,” Wade said, strangled. “Stop. We’re ignoring our erections, remember?”

“Right.”

“Right.”

Peter fiddled with the sleeve of Wade’s new uniform. They still hadn’t spoken about the fight, or about what had happened to the Nazis, or about Wade’s potential alliance with the Reverend. And perhaps they shouldn’t, not until Wade had emerged from his funk. It was like Wade was undergoing withdrawal; he’d just had a high, and now, he was crashing. The least Peter could do was wait before reminding Wade of his drug. They’d discuss it, they _would_ , but not today. Not tonight.

Even if, this very night, the Nazis would probably be occupying all the beds in the infirmary. If they hadn’t already been rushed to a proper hospital, that is. From what Peter could deduce from observing Wade, their injuries would be too grievous to be treated in the poorly-equipped infirmary.

“You… You mentioned your dad, once,” Peter said tentatively. “Did he… Is he why’re you’re…?” _Why you’re terrified of intimacy?_

“My dad was an alcoholic. A typical wife-beating asshole. He hit my mom. He hit me. And I can’t… I can’t let loose like that. Not with you. Not when that’s what I might end up doing.” Wade quietened. Then, as if it took all his courage, he confessed, “It’s in me, Pete. What was in him. The same vile, mindless, destructive evil. What if I let it escape, like he did with the people he claimed to love? I won’t be able to take it if I become him, Pete. I just won’t.”

“And that’s why you won’t become him. Because hurting your loved ones sickens you.” Peter looked earnestly into Wade’s eyes. “Wade, you couldn’t be a domestic abuser if Satan himself was hissing in your ear and Dr. Strangelove was rewiring your brain. You could never hurt me. Not really.”

“What defines ‘really’? ’Cause you have to explain it to me, Petey. I’ve no idea what’s real most of the time.”

“This is real.” Peter twined his fingers with Wade’s, bringing their linked hands up to kiss Wade’s knuckles, as softly as he could. “We’re real. And what defines ‘really’ hurting me is doing anything I don’t consent to. Not that you ever have. Or that you ever will. Cripes, you’re more likely to refuse doing what I _am_ consenting to. But if I want you to bite bruises into my clavicles? You’re totally welcome to do that, damn it.”

Wade chuckled tiredly. “Should I consider it a blanket approval?”

“Blanket? That’s too small. It’s more like a fifty-thousand-foot carpet.”

“Made of wool?”

“Granite. Made of _granite_.”

Minutes passed. Just when Peter was drifting off, Wade said, out of nowhere: “S-Sorry. I shouldn’t have asked you to do that.”

Peter blinked sleepily; it was as if his proximity to Wade was untying all the knots inside him, easing him into restfulness after all that panic of waiting for Wade, of worrying whether Wade was even alive. Now, Wade was back, and peace suffused Peter to the core. It was like a shot of morphine. “To do what?”

“I shouldn’t have asked you to stop me. Back when we were—before we kissed. I shouldn’t have asked you that. Stopping me isn’t your job, Peter. I can’t let that be your job. _I_ have to learn how to stop me. Not you. I can’t force you to do for me what my dad forced my mom to do for him. I can’t force you to be responsible for my actions. That’s on me. It’s all on me, and only on me.” As if it were an oath, Wade pledged, “I will master myself. I will. Because if I don’t, I’ll drag you into the same pit my father dragged my mother into.”

Peter ached. He’d guessed that Wade’s childhood had been traumatic, but this was horrid. “Wade…”

“It’s abuse, isn’t it? When you act like shit and then blame the people around you for it, because somehow _they_ should be stopping you from acting like shit? That’s abuse. Putting someone in that position is abuse. And I won’t abuse you, Peter. I… I refuse to.”

Peter tucked Wade in against him, giving Wade a space where it was warm, where it was safe. Where Wade didn’t have to be afraid. “What’ll you do to master yourself?”

“I’m still figuring it out.” Wade curled an arm around Peter and reeled him in. “But I’ll get there. I’ll definitely get there. I can feel it in my gut.”

“You don’t even have a gut. Thanks to our depressing prison food, malnutrition and weight loss have sloughed away any gut you may have had.” Peter patted Wade’s tummy consolingly. “But I’d love to grow old with you and get a beer-gut with you.”

“Matching beer-guts?” Wade grimaced. “Now that’s the height of romance.”

“Ain’t it, though? We’ll belch into each other’s kisses.”

“Yikes,” said Wade. “Just. Yikes.”

“I know.” Peter snuggled up to Wade contentedly. “I’m a gifted and original thinker and you’re the adoring audience for my brilliant hypotheses. I’m practically giving a TED talk, here.”

“Go to sleep, genius,” Wade said, with such a fervent, pained fondness that Peter had to peck him on the lips again.

“Yeah, yeah. Dinner’s in an hour.” Peter yawned. “Will _you_ sleep?”

Wade buried his nose in Peter’s hair, his arms tightening around Peter. “I’ll try.”

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Wade:** We’ll have sex, I swear!
> 
> **Peter:**

**Author's Note:**

> Like my writing? Follow my [original gay fiction](http://dominiquefrost.tumblr.com/) blog and my [fandom](http://saucefactory.tumblr.com/) blog, both of which are on Tumblr!


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